Ativan envelops me in a warm hug
The only hug I've had in weeks
Everything feels better in its embrace

Lurking in the shadows is Addiction
Its presence making me feel nervous
Each time I take a dose

"Am I taking it too often?" I wonder.
Addiction always lies and tells me "No,"
its eyes gleaming with charm

So I take dose after dose
On an increasingly regular basis
And try my hardest to trust Addiction

The only alternative is
Letting my anxiety gain control
And wreak havoc over my life

I cry
Alone in my room
Softly and silently

Who will ever want me
Even as a friend?
I push everyone away

Loneliness rips at me
A twisting, aching pain
Ever-present, with no relief

Social anxiety made me this way
I had no choice
I'm just hopelessly awkward for life

At work it's the most difficult
My coworkers ignore me
I feel even more like a freak

I need a way out
To escape the pain
Don't know how much longer I can hold on

Privilege is the American social caste system
But let’s just pretend the “American Dream” is
still alive and well, hmm?
Cis white men get all the opportunities
While all us minorities
Are stuck in the dregs of society
“Stop whining,” they say,
“pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”
I just wish that I could tell them to shut their big yaps.
I’m trying as hard as I can
Running a race I can’t win
While they line their pockets
With more and more green.
Then they vote in
the Oompa-Loompa in Chief
Who just gives us more grief
With his cronies and their hateful motifs
No matter how much we protest
Their privilege cannot be contested
They’re in power and we are not
And their power can only be bought
Anyone got a spare billion bucks?
I want to buy off these chucklefucks
We could start this country over, us minorities
And turn it into the real-life “land of the free.”
Who’s with me?

What is peace, really?
Is it an absence of war?
Is it a state in which everyone agrees on everything,
As though brainwashed?
Or is it just yet another impossible concept
Thought up by fallible human beings
In a quest to try to solve the world's problems?

Invisible eyes follow me everywhere,
staring into my very soul,
judging me for every single move I make,
laughing at me when I embarrass myself,
making me want to break into a million pieces
from fear,
from self-hatred,
from humiliation.

Insecurity
plagues me;
makes me feel
like my poems
aren’t good enough.
I keep typing, but why?
I’m just making this poem worse
by continuing on with it.
I’m like the reverse version
of King Midas,
everything I touch,
everything I write,
everything I ever do,
turns to utter garbage.

I’m okay, you’re okay.
That’s the game we play
Pretending, day by day
To not let our demeanors betray
To tamper everything we say
When we daily play
This game of I’m okay, you’re okay.

Meanwhile, when we’re alone
We can feel free to bemoan
And groan (but not loudly)
Everything we haven’t shown
To each other but is known to us
But when we’re together, that’s verboten
It’s just “I’m okay, you’re okay.”