anxiety

Shame

It’s difficult to look myself directly in the eyes — for fear of what I’ll see in them. Fear? Or his brother, shame. Yes, I’ll see him sitting in there, one leg dangling out of each socket. “Look at what an anxious fool you let yourself become!” he says, patiently, all-knowingly. I walk around withContinue reading “Shame”

Q-tips

Q-tips feel good when I scratch inside my ear, try to find what’s living in there. Is it guilt for being “the golden child,” my sister running away to the Hewitt playground because of the dark shadow behind me? Maybe it’s associations, trauma, changing the narrative as a practice, taking gentle effort, taking time?Continue reading “Q-tips”

Three Parts

I. Our hearts wide open on the sofa, in the den, we glide past memories and landscapes of lost wishes and dreams untouched– but oh, my dear, did you touch them! How far you ran! How far we traveled when home was right next door? I can only tell you so many times how muchContinue reading “Three Parts”

Rain

It’s awfully scary to be locked up in some dark skin, feel the twirling of your insides — in and out this nervous energy is moving me — finding a way out is so easy so easy to do I’ve heard it before but I still feel it trickling, tinkling, tinkering with my mind andContinue reading “Rain”

When you open up about it I’m not promising it will be easy. . When the air becomes thick like white cream cheese and you can’t simply scrape off the edges with a knife you wonder who else is feeling this way? . I thought my mother did; but she said, “What I’m feeling isContinue reading “Anxiety”

Washing Off Fear

Things that scare me: too much movement, not enough time, students failing classes, children falling in line to a code of conduct the state tends to copy from one generation to the next– why can’t they provide bandaids instead for the multitude of broken hearts and wings clipped off before they got to fly, myContinue reading “Washing Off Fear”