Couvade syndrome

Even though scientists proved a few outliers had greatly skewed the data,

I’m attached to the myth that people who have been struck by lightning

are more likely to get struck again, and since it’s such a good conversation starter

I share it matter-of-factly, similar to when my husband announced at my baby shower

that he was suffering from Couvade syndrome and phones came flying out to google Couvade,

and within minutes men started nodding now that they had a name for their ordeal,

and once the shower games were played and gifts unwrapped, my uncle presented my husband

with a slice of chocolate cake and a dramatic bow, and my husband kicked back in his lawn chair

and forked a piece into his mouth with gusto as my toes swelled and deviled egg refluxed

into my throat every time the baby kicked, but years later I understand that my husband

owning Couvade’s was a fine thing, a good thing, similar to the mantra I use to get to sleep,

repeating You’re invincible as if my stitched-up heart throbs like Popeye’s bicep jacked on spinach,

but when a wicked wind comes like a train, warning it’s time to kill the belief that once you’re struck

once your doomed to be struck again, but the stories we tell ourselves are not like the stories we tell others,

the stories we tell ourselves are forked and hot, cracking down and turning the night sky violet,

and when the wind bends the saplings, it’s easy to believe there is shelter beneath that big tree,

easy to think there’s respite under those thick arms, but this is a lie, similar to the oft-told tale

that to resuscitate with your soft mouth a heart struck into stopping will stop yours too,

as if standing by dumbly watching lips blanch blue is an act of self-preservation

rather than a tragedy, that what’s true is to drop to your knees and play god.