When people ask me who I am without my anxiety I don't know how to answer them

I walk around with a zipper at the nape of my neck

And when I open myself up without the anxiety that forms me there is nothing but sadness and ice left

Sometimes I feel like there is sunlight penetrating through my bones, begging to escape

But when I pull down the zipper my anxiety laughs at how I could think that there was even a possibility of something bright and warm inside of me

 

If you ask me who I am without my anxiety I will tell you, I am me, but the voice inside my head tells me I am nothing

My anxiety is the love that fills me

The terror that inspires me

The perfectionism that drives me

But I can't say that out loud

Because dinner party conversation or first date question games are not the appropriate places to say that without it I am dead inside

 

When I take my medication, I have been described as flat

1 dimensional

Having no substance

So when you ask who I am without my anxiety

Telling you I am nothing, may be the only honest answer