Dear Anxiety,

I am drowning.

There is a fire in my head and it’s stinging at the back of my throat. My feet weigh a hundred pounds and I am scared to take another step. My heart is dancing to its own rhythm, but, the beats are heavy metal now; I killed the symphony for a few cheap tears. 

Air feels like poisoned water and the world feels like a bedless ocean. 

I am struggling.

Stretching my hands out. Hitting them against nothing. Trying to fetch a grip of the unknown.

I can’t see.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t feel.

But I… I can hear… I can hear you. Standing in a corner of this dingy dark room, smirking at my pale shivering body and laughing at the void in my eyes. 

There is only so much a heart can take.
You stab it once. It weeps.
Once again and it screams.
Thrice and it falls silent.

Silent. Too silent for silence to hear itself hum.
Humming to the choir of truths and lies.
Humming to the cords of your broken guitar.
Humming to you.

Do you know what follows dead silence?
A roaring storm.

And before you know it, you find yourself running.
Around the room.
Pulling curtains down.
Breaking windows.

You rage up. You let the flames out. You begin to count. You begin to sing.
You begin to hug yourself, feeling hopeless out of sheer pain and then harm yourself to cause more of it.

Dear Anxiety,
You are funny!

You heal, You lie; You tear me up and you fly… away… until next time when my peace begins to threaten you and my giggles sound like war cries.

You are a demon. You are my demon. You are the devil I love to play with. You meet me behind the fallen curtains of well-lit stages. You denounce shame on my courage and take pride in my anger. 

You are a champion. So far, in the past few years, you have never lost a battle against me.
You win.

And I… I let you. I let you walk away with victory as if I never aimed at it.
And the worst part? That is the truth!
It is!

Because, dear anxiety,

I am drowning… and it comes with a strange delusional peace.

With fear,
G.

– Gauri Walecha

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