Dear Anxiety

You arrive without knocking.

No warning,

no reason I can name—

just the sudden weight

of your presence,

settling on my chest

like a stone dipped in fire.

You burn me quietly,

from the inside out.

My skin tightens.

My heart stutters.

My thoughts trip over each other,

racing nowhere,

building stories from shadows,

and fears from nothing at all.

I feel a lump in my throat,

thick and unspoken,

as if grief has come

without telling me what I’ve lost.

As if I’m mourning

something I never had the chance to hold.

You make me question

everything—

my worth,

my voice,

the way the world sees me

(if it sees me at all).

You whisper

just loud enough

to make silence feel dangerous.

And still,

I carry you.

Through crowded rooms,

through late nights,

through moments that should feel soft

but now taste of tension

and trembling.

Sometimes I wonder—

are you trying to protect me

from a danger that isn’t there?

Or are you the danger yourself?

I don’t have the answers.

I only know that

when you come,

you don’t come gently.

And yet, I write this,

hoping that giving you a name

makes you smaller.

Makes me braver.

Maybe I’m not alone in this.

Maybe there are others

who walk with you

pressed against their ribs,

pretending their breath

isn’t breaking.

Maybe this letter

is a beginning.

Maybe naming you

is the first time

I stop letting you

be everything.

With aching honesty,

Me