What do you do when your legs ain’t pretty anymore?

How I choose to battle illness

By Jonathan Michael Saucedo

What do you do when your legs ain’t pretty anymore?

…you will suck in a prayer and charcoal from the bbq floating down the beach as you sink your fingers into the sand.

You just don’t know it yet.

Give it time.

The water is somewhere between blue, green, and gray.

You see a man using a cane. A few years older than you, you think. Or does he think the same of you? Tonight, you walk alone.

Finally, you appreciate a simple strand of lights in the bay window of the apartments overlooking the beach. You sat on that pier once.

In dog shit. And you laughed.

You continue down the street toward the safety of streetlights. You wonder if the people passing by think you might jump them, not knowing you silently ask the same of them. They could knock you over with the breath of their young dreams.

This road is alive, and you never really noticed the humanity of it. Now, you do, but the lights are blurry, and your legs move slowly, threatening to expose your predicament as darkness cloaks your nighttime journey. You become afraid you will

go away

before you are through

Before you can appreciate this road.

They opened a Popeyes and a CVS.

But those 2 am breakfast sandwiches from the Dunkin’ Donuts were so greasy good.

You were young.

Is the college kid beside me judging the McDonald’s cup in my shaky hand?

It’s diet.

You keep walking on those busted legs because they’re yours, and they’re trying so hard to hold you. You ask them to carry you a little further.

A breeze too gentle to harm you extends an invisible hand. You grasp it like a child to his mother.

You sink into a praying pose.

Sand.

Warm and loving wraps you in love so needed, you cry a bit. You’re home so far from where you have lived all these years.

Ugliness has no place here. All is beauty.

Jonathan is a teacher and freelance writer in the Chicagoland area. He is finishing his MFA in Writing while teaching by day as he battles an autoimmune neurological disorder, always living in hope. You can read more of his work at jonathanmichaelsaucedo.com