Qualms

Julie Marie Wade

Nearly onomatopoetic, isn’t it? That squeamish feeling that accompanies the K-W stretch at the start of the word, giving way almost immediately (monosyllabic trickery!) to the end. Your whole mouth is involved, moving in a manner consistent with retching, then drawing back. An abrupt swallow, a dry heave. Qua, meaning “in the capacity of” and alms, meaning “a charitable offering,” though qualms are rarely given, seldom shared. Instead, they cling, and more like corsets than static. To have qualms is to be caught in a clammy state, damp with doubt and twitching inside a shell. Unlike an omen, which presents from afar, the qualm rises from within. A gut feeling, yes? Prickling with concerns that have gone too long without articulation. A flaccid dispute is a qualm. A withered complaint is a qualm. And rarely is there only one. Qualms tend to cluster. If you are “having qualms,” it’s a bit like saying you’re having indigestion, but the solution isn’t as simple as reaching for the Tums or sipping some fizzy water. A qualm is when the body knows more than the brain, or perhaps the qualm is involved in the ultimate cover-up. Corporeal gaslighting? They’re invisible to the naked eye, these qualms, and we vacillate before we ever think to voice them. Imagine a qualms test, over-priced but conveniently over-the-counter, something akin to a COVID test. Each qualm discernible now by nasal swab—swift but unpleasant like that. Wait to see if multiple lines appear. Instead of pink, they’re khaki-colored, and they confirm you are indeed positive for qualms, afflicted with another word that sounds like what it means—misgivings. The misgiven is what you have failed to expel and are now forced to retain, lug at length. A kidney stone, once it measures more than two millimeters, cannot be passed with water and pain. Doctors must intervene to implode. Lithotripsy: a horrible procedure with an adorable name. Let’s assume that every qualm is a pebble, but not the kind that rolls around in a shoe. That’s easy, external. You can shake it out, leave it on the ground. Qualms are pebbles accumulating inside—gravel in the belly, mace balls in the ureter. Have you ever seen a kidney stone? My partner passed one once, in the obligatory strainer dispensed at the ER, and we both stared at the source of scream and tear, tiny and covered in spikes. It doesn’t look like much, but that’s the point. Same with cysts before they burst or before they’re aspirated. (Another deceptively charming word.) A qualm is a cyst or a stone that doesn’t show up on the CAT scan, doesn’t even cast a shadow. Something’s wrong that no one else can see and only you can feel. I have qualms! More of a syndrome than a disease, though dis-ease is precisely what you feel when you’re qualming. Constellation of symptoms without a clear source, qualms remind you of your teenage cramps, writhing with a heating pad while a chorus of voices insists it can’t be that bad. Maybe you’re just under-prepared for your chemistry test and looking for a note from the nurse, buying some extra time. Remember: a nice girl turns that frown upside down and stuffs those qualms even further down! She tongues her Midol dry, troubling no one for a swig of soda, let alone Red Bull or Blue Moon. Shouldn’t we have a designated driver? Does anyone know whose house this is? What if the parents come home? The goody-goody, the party-pooper, the naysayer, the Debbie Downer—all girls who bear the stigma of qualms expressed, hesitations verbalized. After all, a cool girl would keep her qualms suppressed, and a guy, any guy, might plead the Fifth when it comes to intuition. Nah, bruh, I don’t think dudes can have that. (They can.) Qualms are a somatic manifestation of a semantic explanation that hasn’t been proffered, ventured, or properly heard. Cut out the big words, dawg. Keep it real. I’m worried. Something’s off. Have a drink. Take a hit. Anyone still packing a chill pill, or is that vernacular like, ancient, man? She learns the drill: Nothing. It’s fine. Never mind.

Renew

When the librarian took your stack of books, scanned with her wand, then offered to—how the lights softened from a buzz to a purr, yellow to pink with the present-day glow of a Himalayan salt lamp. “Shall I renew these for you, dear?” Swoon! Everyone knew (didn’t they?) that re-reading was the only way to love a book, to claim it as a forever kind of friend. Anne loved Diana this way, a bosom friend she said, and despite your boring brown hair which should have been red, that’s how you loved Lucy Maud and every renewable author. The best librarian at your local branch wore purple stirrup pants with long, elaborate sweaters. One displayed a gumball machine crocheted with orbs of every color. They protruded from the bodice of thick black yarn in a way that would have set cats to batting—and did she perhaps have a cat at home? “Oh, several. Turns out you can’t have just one”—though you did, and Mittens seemed to like it that way. A book renewal was a second chance to savor the language and the story. You watched her fling open the ink pad and moisten her stamp, then press down hard on the due date card, and for two more weeks, the books were yours! Story was what happened, and you mostly got it the first time. But language was like dessert, and everyone knew (didn’t they?) that you always had room for more. Stomachs were magical this way. Full of potatoes or strange meat, you’d swear you couldn’t eat another thing, then—brownies or cupcakes or leftover Halloween candy would appear. Often it was raining outside, so you’d stuff your renewed books (they looked shinier post-renewal!) back into the plastic sack that doubled as a wastebin liner. Your mother bought the kind with a mauve tint and a cinnamon scent. In went your books so they wouldn’t get wet. Amelia Bedelia was always worth renewing because she taught you to appreciate puns. You loved the page where she was playing baseball, and when the kids shouted to “steal home,” she picked up the big, white square and took off running! It was funny before you understood why. To your father, you explained, “See, Amelia gets confused a lot about what words mean in different situations. She once sewed a hat and booties to put on a turkey because someone told her she had to ‘dress’ it. See, she thought they meant clothing, but ‘dress’ is also a synonym for ‘prepare.’” Your father chuckled, asked if you ever got tired of poring over the same scenes. You shook your head. Renewing something was about seeing it with fresh eyes, appreciating it all over again. And wasn’t this why people your parents’ age were always renewing their vows—because they wanted to see each other with fresh eyes, too, appreciate what they might have taken for granted? “Maybe you and Mom will renew your wedding vows one day like those people who put out all the fancy doughnuts and cookies that Sunday after church?” His nos were quiet, barely inaudible, but your mother was known for raucous declines. “Are you kidding? It’s desperation disguised as celebration!” She always had a flair for internal rhyme. “The first vows are a one-stop shop. No need to return to that store.” Once, you tried to check out a book by a poet named Robert Frost. You liked the sound of his name, how he carried the weather with him. Maybe you would change your name to Julie Snow. “This book has a special designation,” the new librarian explained. “You can’t check it out or renew it, but you can keep it for as long as you like.” Her bangs resembled a waterfall, huge and grand like the fabled Niagara Falls. “I don’t understand.” She was younger than the other librarian, her sweaters disappointingly plain. “We just don’t track the borrowers for books with this seal,” pointing to a silver sticker in the corner. It has been thirty-four years. That book has traveled with you more than 3,000 miles, on many roads through many, variegated woods. As far as you know, your parents are still married. As far as they know, you are still Julie Wade.

Julie Marie Wade‘s recent collections include Other People’s Mothers (University Press of Florida, 2025), The Mary Years (Texas Review Press, 2024), selected by Michael Martone for the 2023 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize, and Quick Change Artist: Poems (Anhinga Press, 2025), selected by Octavio Quintanilla for the 2023 Anhinga Prize in Poetry and 2026 Silver Medalist in the Florida Book Awards. A finalist for the National Poetry Series and a winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir, Wade teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami and makes her home with Angie Griffin and their two cats.

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