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Emma Dec 2
the world (a razor) hums with
laughter not mine—
crooked smiles cutting corners
of too-loud air (a trembling thing)

hands betray me (marionette strings)
dangling in this cracked parade
where faces blur into shadows
all teeth and no eyes—

and I (a statue) stuck to the cement
of this fear-wracked moment
watch with doe-eyes (wide and glass)
every step (a thunderclap)
a storm pounding the small sky within

sky breaks
and falls like shards,
my breath a shattered hymn
(please no) — tomorrow, I’ll stay
tucked in the soft (silent) cocoon of here.

no steps. no looks. no cruel
laughter to chase me into
the screaming world—

home, the only place
where walls hold me steady,
their silence a shield,
a quiet so deep
it forgets the world.
Aimée Sep 19
Social Anxiety,
Doesn't mean that I'm weird,
You don't know me at all,
And I'll make it very clear,
I have many talents,
That you don't even see,
I'm good at many things,
And that's what makes me me.
When I go out,
I get quite overwhelmed,
The panic attacks are awful,
self conciousness turned up to 10,
I get mean looks
everywhere from strangers,
Staring into my face,
Trying to read me like a newspaper.
Getting laughed at isn't nice,
It doesn't help at all,
How would you like to be made feel, So very small?
Calling me awkward,
Making me feel like I'm less,
But wouldn't you act the same out in public,
If your mind was a ****** mess?
Step into my shoes,
And I'll give you what I have,
Is it funny anymore?
Now do you feel very bad?
You were mean to me,
When I was struggling like this,
How does it feel in my shoes,
If the perspective was switched?
This is a poem about how it feels to suffer from crippling social anxiety, and how society can treat you differently or like an outsider because of how you act due to having it.
zoya skylar Jul 2023
i once met a caterpillar
she was quite pretty

i remember

she would smile
and sing
and love
and cry
and mourn
and fear
and hide

outstanding, i thought
now, even baffled
watching her
cocoon

silk is costly
and she lacked
expenses

but she
continued

and continued
and continued
and continued

until

the
cocoon
stopped

it was rare
but the caterpillar could feel
a metamorphosis
approaching

so she closed all the blinds
tacked curtains’ edges
settled in her corner
swallowed by her covers
relished in the darkness

and got on her laptop
a cocoon doesn’t always have to be bad. sometimes one needs to curl up and compress their existence, and sometimes the cocoon is content, yet suffocating, and normal, and unhealthy. i tend to go back and forth, and sometimes i complete the metamorphosis, but i then go back to my cocoon, and continue the process again
Sarah Mulqueen Jul 2023
I wish I was stronger
That my mind would leave me alone
I keep trying
Pushing through all of these walls I've built
I keep trying
To focus on the little things to get me through each day
To focus on the positives in every single day
Why can't I just stop
Stop worrying about how I'm meant to do this because the pain and sadness doesn't stop
I wish I didn't feel so strongly
The emotions I carry weigh me down so intensely
I don't want this to be who I am or how I am
But it's the only way I've ever known how to be
Countless years of trying to brake this cycle just to function
To not feel so alone
To be happy
To be able to feel free of what I escaped from
To stand proud of who I am and that I'm here today
Three years ago in September, I tried to take my life. My self worth, value and my identity was in the hands of someone else. They wanted their cake and to eat it too, and it literally destroyed me.
3 years on, I'm still struggling to put back the pieces. 3 years on I'm stuck in limbo while life carries on around me.
I'm trying daily to break the patterns and redefine myself. But daily I am struggling.
Sonorant Nov 2021
I. Phasmophobia
I am the innumerable gloom of dim, long-buried anthems.
In wistful suspension, I shadow over a living loft in silence.
Tethered between lines, my fog bleeds on panes in knocking
Hawking your dimming faces in the lamplight of my genesis.
Torn the tunnels of their astringed throats, a requiem is reaped.
— ”I was a shape moving rapidly, nervous at the edge of your vision.” -Cynthia Huntington

II. Claustrophobia
I am the small match ignited from the depths of your mind.
My walls blanched absent of evacuation, self invite into
Your personal and private violation, invading every fissure
With icy burns, solidifying your chrysalis on hungry bark.
Your frozen God of smothering doom, a willow devours you.
— “But then I remember the universe was closed, and so very small. There was really no where else to go.” -Peter Watts

III. Ommetaphobia
I am the stricken, scarlet cloth coalesced of cruelty and ichor.
These rawboned talons, cloaked thereof, overtake embrace—
In coarse delight— a piety of prisoners’ silver stark sights.
Perceptive cavities leak my garb as my artistic blade sweeps.
Plucked from the dredges of a briny skull, two diamond orbs.
— ”The hearts hushed secret is in the soft, dark eye." -Letitia Elizabeth Landon
.
IV. Monophobia
I was the cherished friend to you, my twine stitched in your grasp.
A golden balloon unaffected by tides of time and distorting gales.
Alas from this intimate atmosphere shot an arrow, poisonous
Where silently I erupt into a missing memory upon the wind.
As your curtains close, you breathe for me, without a hand to hold.
—”And all I lov’d, I lov’d alone.” -Edgar Allan Poe

V. Arachnophobia
I am the legion of soundless beholders aloft your dormant dreams.
An itch scattered over the crooked spine, arid for pulsing melodies.
This fruitful sapling beckons each dark, angular limb near your neck.
As my lighting strikes erratically, your foolish impulse slow to clutch
Creeping necrosis bestowed by the guardian who claimed your home.
—”The Spider taketh with her hands and is in king’s palaces.” -Proverbs 30:28.

VI. Agoraphobia
I am the ancestral abductor of this rotting womb you deem a shelter.
As the embryo held within, I contract you into tides and bid ‘swim’.
Directions devoid, beyond bolted doors, you plummet to my depths
Where you wish for comforts’ wind but mislaid the method to breathe.
My otherworld encompasses you, whilst I drink in your suffocating.
— ”Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.” -William Thackeray

VII. Ecclesiophobia
I am the black shepherd in martyric masque and a mitre casque.
A discrete imminent sheep cowers, hanging on the hook in my gallery—
My chalice congregates your pure liquor of laments for libertine luxury.
I rise where you fall and smother the lantern of your last mortal minutes
Instilling final grace in the stillness of your veins, my kingdom reigns eternally.
— ”Suffering can be a gift.” - Abbie Bernstein.
Beaux Sep 2021
I can’t look myself in the eye
I can’t gaze upon my face
Reflections are my enemy
Pictures are my fear
Poisoned by standards
Intoxicated by privacy

I stand here wondering
I stand here asking
Will I ever be unmasked?

Mask my face
Mask my name
Mask my home
Mask up
Don’t forget it
Don’t let them see
Don’t let them know

Break a mirror
Punch a wall
I don’t want to see
I don’t want to know

Red wine
Rainy day
Stay inside
Stay away

Don’t leave and you’ll be okay
9/23/21
clmathew Dec 2020
Longing for the sun
written March 6th, 2020

Do vampires long for the sun?

Do they sit in their safe shade
and reach a pale cold finger
towards the brightness of the sun?

Do they dream of standing in the open
faces turned upwards towards a sun so bright
they have to close their eyes?

Do they lift their arms
in sun salutations
adoring the sun?

Do they yearn to feel the sun
touching every inch
of their naked skin?

Do they paint
picture after picture
of worlds filled with sun?

Do vampires long for the sun?
I am often stuck inside. I go through decades of my life where the only way I get outside is with my hubby. About a year ago, it had rained for weeks. There were 2 days predicted for sun, and hubby was working all of both of them. I cried and shut the blinds and tried to pretend it wasn't sunny out. I just couldn't get outside on my own then. Now, the last poem I posted, was about me actually walking outside, on my own, in the sun and the shadows. I'm not thrilled with the vampire imagery in this poem, but who except maybe a vampire, could understand how badly I wanted to be outside in the sun.
Tony Tweedy Nov 2020
So difficult a thing to give the inexperienced a way to understand.
Why I am shaped the way I am by things I had never planned.

I could tell you of those things in the hope they would shine a light.
But unless you have been there you just couldn't see them right.

Now I know that from the outside I may look the same as you.
But I also know that on the inside I can see a different view.

Those unplanned things that changed me in oh so many ways.
Leaving me without a point or purpose facing lonely empty days.

So deep the changes made that I struggle to leave my own door.
In a head that despises minutes and asks what all the hours are for.

In a mind that knows me Oh so well fearing you can see inside.
Withdrawn from your society is my only safe place to hide.

My mind is not so broken that I have forgotten all my past.
It knows full well that by choice hope and love have been outcast.

To the inexperienced from a mind that survives a life in this way.
I hope you have clearer understanding of how I live my every day.

I have no wisdom to offer or warning of a path you should avoid.
External views wont show you why survival has been employed.

Where choice has different meaning, instinct plays a bigger part.
And mind suppresses both hope and dreams of a broken heart.

I am become who I am by the path my life road has turned.
I am this shape by instinct to survive, not from lessons I have learned.
Sometimes you just know you are getting old.
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