Anxiety

39.

Dear anxiety,
would you kindly get out of my body

Actually,
skip the kindly
get the fuck out of me
exactly the way you showed up
all at once
and seemingly permanently

I keep trying
to show you that I don’t have room for you
trying to warn you
by tugging my breath
in and out

I’m hiding from you

I’m hiding from freeway lanes
and light blue lines
of old journals

I’m hiding
from the things I think they must have said about me
when I was 10
and the things I know I said about myself
10 minutes ago

I’m hiding
from the people I love
from the people that I would love to be
from the person that I could be one step closer to being
if you would just unwrap yourself from my ankles

I’m hiding
from all the places
where I know you love to sleep

And I always thought
that I had a lot of experience
with keeping quiet
but you have me beat

Because I am never prepared
I didn’t get far enough in Girl Scouts
to learn that being prepared is rule #1
before you sewed patched over my eyes
obstructed my vision

You taught me
how to turn every eye contact
into silent whisper
into silent dagger
pointed directly at me
pointed at everything I’m doing wrong
so I learned to keep my eyes closed

Dear anxiety,
I’m begging you to leave
because I need to open my eyes
if I want to stop falling down these staircases

But the thing about yours
is that they never seem to have bottoms
just chairs
that you’re about to pull out
from under my feet
before I even get the chance to catch my breath

And maybe
I would be better at catching my breath
If I spent less time catching my tears
before they left my eyes
if I spent less time
trying to shove them back into my tear ducts

Because they don’t evaporate
just turn to dry ice
and when the pressure builds
they steam needs to escape somehow

But I also need to escape somehow
because anxiety,
you have made me so tired
showed me so much ugly
in everyone and everything
you have showed me so much heavy

And anxiety,
I have to thank you
because there was a time when I needed you
to turn my telescope to the wrong side
and make my world small
there was a time when I wasn’t ready
to see real beauty
and all of its ugly chaos
but I’m hungry for it now

So anxiety,
I think it’s time that the two of us take a break
it’s not you, it’s me
and believe me,
I will never forget you