My Anxiety

I am a soda that’s been shaken up, my insides are disrupted carbonation. My brain is the black and white static screen, and each white speck is a separate thought. I notice that my jaw is clenched, but only because of the ache.

I can not be still, every inch of me feels the need to get up and do something, fix something, better something. I’m not doing enough, I have to do more. My chest hurts and my breaths become shallow as the weight of it compresses me from the inside.

I have nightmares in which these thoughts have a physical manifestation and all it does is press me down. I’m struggling to breath beneath the weight. It lets up just enough for me to get the oxygen necessary to survive, but not enough to feel comfortable. Not enough to settle down. I’m falling from a plane and I don’t have a parachute. I’m holding myself together like a bandaid holds together a gunshot wound.