Anxiety

Anxiety loiters around your mind and refuses to leave until you make him.  Anxiety is a gnat attracted to humidity, constantly buzzing and getting in your face.  Anxiety screams obscenities from the street corner, “You’re wrong! They’re lying to you!  The world is ending!” Anxiety talks your ear off at dinner about how everything you’re doing is a disappointment.  It is a weed that chokes out all the flowers in the garden, stealing the valuable energy and nutrition of the soil for itself.  Anxiety puts on the act of being caring before pulling the rug out from under you, laughing while he does it. You drown while submerged in anxiety, but you know if you try to break the surface, the storm above is still raging.  When you’re on the ropes in a boxing match, anxiety is relentless. It corners you wherever you are, be it a dark alley or a brightly-lit library. Before long, anxiety has you in a death grip that you’re physically unable to escape.

Written in during the autumn of 2017