Having anxiety isn’t cool like being bipolar,
and you don’t get bumper sticker slogans
scribbled with advice about life.
You don’t get to write poems wrapped in mania
after scrubbing the bathroom raw
and having bleach seep into your cut veins
from picking at a shadow for two hours.
There isn’t an afterschool special
about how your thoughts cripple your body
and turn your mind in on itself.
Or how you want to rip out the bones
festering under your skin
so you can finally breathe without a ribcage.
No one cares that you name objects
to focus on something
other than the time four days ago
when you called someone by the wrong name,
and those three seconds have played
on a loop ever since.
And it certainly doesn’t matter
you spend hours each morning
planning conversations until you know
exactly how you’ll react.
Having anxiety isn’t cool since you were born
with the correct wiring in your brain,
and it’s all just in your head anyway.