Are you okay? She asks me.
I nod yes but look down
She knows I am not

My past still haunts me
when night circles in
darkness never fleeting

In class I sit with my psychology professor's voice
somewhere in the distance
"What does anxiety feel like?"

Anxiety is the cheese steak
I threw in the garbage the fateful night
my friends in college told me they hated me

It is newly 14 year old Erin
looking over the side of Narragansett Pier
on her birthday thinking what if her head hit those rocks

The fear that no one will love me
I will continue in this world the way I came and will go,
alone.

I don't know how long these memories
will haunt me
my soul forever altered