The Crack
Franchetta Groves (Class of 2023), a Media and Communications Studies major with minors in Theology, Politics, and Writing, has written for CUA's The Tower and has been published in CNN previously.
Guilt is a challenging and complicated emotion.
We carry it often when it is not ours to bear.
Or we place it on external factors,
Way outside our control.
For me, I know exactly where I went wrong.
It was the crack I stepped on running in from the playground.
Don’t step on a crack, you’ll break your mother's back.
This phrase comes back and haunts me years later.
This retribution,
Karmic energy latched on from an old wives tale I was too foolish to pay mind to in my youth.
The other kids playing hop-scotch,
Able to pay no mind to having to keep curses and cancers and diseases away.
Able to step on the crack with nothing but a joke and a laugh,
A teasing taunt before ordering themselves into single-filled lines at the sound of the whistle.
Decades later you can still feel the guilt flooding your cheeks,
Flashbacks to looking down to your worn-out saddle shoes and seeing the cracked cement
residing under your feet.
Don’t step on a crack, you’ll break your mother's back
You wonder if maybe that is where it all went wrong
Years of resentment and fear,
Anxiety and anger.
Now the clock feels that it's running out and all you can wish for is to go back in time and tell
yourself to keep to the grass instead.
Winter 2023