Step on a Crack

Don’t step on a crack
you’ll break your mother’s back
for years I was afraid
to walk on a sidewalk
afraid a misstep would
harm my mother.

Seems silly now, yet
how often our fears
are so unfounded
crippling even
yet we carry them for years
full of “what-ifs.”

I’m laying down my fears now
don’t want to carry them anymore
whatever comes will come anyway
life is what it is
and even what it’s not
when I conjure up fears
so now I’m free to step on cracks
which I didn’t do for many years.