Ode to Anxiety

Oh, lovely overtaker

You make me feel as if I’m buried

In my own tumbling thoughts

Yet within your gentle, gaslighting embrace

I feel as if I’m crazy to be feeling this way

As layers upon layers of varying worries

Piling upon my head like eternal

Sedimentary rock

The slipping rabbit hole of thoughts

Gapes before me

Smelling of sickly sweet roses

And stale, repeating ideas

Empty and wet

Like a horrid shell of an

Other-Mother, akin to

The desaturated and rotten smell of

A calming rainy evening

But no, you’re here to stay

The newlywed bliss of

Unholy matrimony

Hanging in the air like the acid aura of

Tacky nail polish, practically asking

For mistakes to be made

Then pouncing, viciously attacking

Any errors that may arise

And though to err is human

You convince me otherwise

It’s a cycle of panic and the following regret

Of sharp smells and sour air

Then the peaceful rainy evenings and

Lavender essences you make me resort to

They’re rare relics from the joyous eras

When you leave me be

But more often than not, you hold me close

Letting me know you’ll never leave

Whispering through the calming tactics

You always make me reek of

Oh, lovely overtaker

Who promises to never leave me