The Cane

I was working when it arrived, the cane.
A gift from my mother who walks with the same.
It waits for me all day while I’m working unaware of its arrival.
Simple but elegant the cane, I test its stability.
Walking used to be so much easier before the need for the cane.
I sit and study it, wood with a cherry glaze.
I don’t use it right away, the cane, it rests in the corner watching.
I go through the cycle that is my life.
Wake up, shower, get ready, work, come home tired, make dinner (not lately), medicate, heating pad, sleep (if that’s what you can call it), tossing and turning, and start again wake up.
I take it in my hand, the cane, and walk around the house, letting it help me when I’m weak.
As the days pass, I find myself using it more, after work, after the day.
It waits for me like a loyal companion would wait by the front door, where earlier I had left it.
I took it to the super market; it was the first time in a public place.
Always nervous because of how people would look at me walking with the cane.
The days are starting to become unmanageable without it, the cane, always trying to find something to hold me up.
Physical pain has blended into emotional stress that redirects to cause physical pain.
Another path that can’t find its’ end.
I hold it close to me, the cane, use it to keep what is now my 5’7” frame form buckling under pressure.
I am only 33, and I am shorter than before.
We have become friends, me, and the cane, as it is the only thing to see my struggle up close.