Why I Don't Like Opinions

I was three months old
when my mother took me to the doctor.
I was dressed in blue pajamas,
and my mother wore frayed jean shorts
and a flowery pink top.
“He moves in his sleep,” my mother told
the doctor, who sat legs crossed,
his shiny black-rimmed glasses hanging
off his nose, his pencil hovering
over a pad of paper.
“He rocks back and forth,
waffling like that for an hour every night,” she explained.

The doctor repositioned his glasses
and scribbled a note. “He’ll grow out of it in time,”
intoned the doctor.
He stood up and sat down again. Small talk
and general inquiries filled
the final twenty five minutes of the visit.
That night, my mother placed my
blue pajama body in a bundle
of warm blankets, and
I waffled until sleep stole my waking moments.

My father had a friend who rocked like me.
He was charismatic. Conversations were his love
and humor his tool to make them alive.
“He would take over a room. It was amazing
how all eyes would follow him,” my father
would say, his eyes brightened
by the memory’s light.
My father loved this man
and would likely still call him
“best friend” if he hadn’t died from brain cancer
at the age of thirty-two.

“You will grow out of it,” my mother exclaimed
the morning my bedroom door inadvertently
swung open to reveal my body waffling back
and forth. I stepped over dirty,
black athletic shorts to shut the door
and went back to bed.
“You will grow out of it,” my father firmly insisted,
as he mentioned his friend who had
died of brain cancer caused by rocking.
I turn twenty-one today, and I still rock or waffle.

Only eleven years left.