Anxiety is Perfectly Natural, Sweetie :)

There are mountains on my chest A pressure that could crack my sternum

Precariously balanced Any noise too loud will trigger a rockslide

Gashes like canyons trail through my skull, collecting dust and gravel to rattle around

A trickle of doubt is all it takes to

erode them further, crumbling the bedrock and worming deeper into my psyche, carving through

the wasteland of my mind,

dehydrated and desperate

Loam gathers, first in my toes,

then filling up my shins and hips and mouth Pressing on the soil below until

it is packed, heavy and dense Trees root themselves on my shoulders

to keep them hunched

The twigs of my fingers

tremble gently, rustling in a suspicious breeze

Leaves sprout from my weary eyes and all before me is a verdant blur Sap gushes slowly from

fresh wounds in the splintered wood and

congeals on my lashes The bark scrapes the apples of

my cheeks and stains them blotchy red While its roots bury themselves

beneath my skin, through my fat

and flesh to twine around taut sinew

There are termites in these trees They scuttle across my scalp down my spine and back again

They aren’t alone

A wingtip scrapes against the damp,

spongy walls of my lungs Claws scratch at their pliant cage and

a feathered body presses wetly,

painstakingly testing the elasticity to its limits

Smaller creatures, mammalian and

frantic, wedge themselves through

the crevices between spleen and kidney,

esophagus and heart, looking

for an exit that just isn't there

But even the flutter between

my ribs can not distract from the boulder lodged above

my voice box within the confines of

my collapsing throat blocking the flow of sickly saliva seeping from the walls A lake gathers, placid and

stagnant, behind my fertile gums

But the tide swallows it down before

anything can grow It soaks into the wretched,

gritty sandbar in my belly and drains into the bubbling

pit of my sulphuric small intestine

The sloshing in my stomach drowns the roots of english ivy,

there is no place for cleansing here Brambles grow in places flowers can't A briar patch within the aching chest of someone growing less and less human