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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.
Today an old friend came to visit.
Not completely unannounced, but
not particularly invited.

The kind of friend
that once served you well,
but their ways grew outdated
when you made it out of hell.

When the pain settled to trauma,
it became entirely something else.
But your friend thinks they know best
and give involuntary help.

The kind of friend
that's over bearing
and embeds into
the skin you're wearing.

Stitching in bad habits.
Manifesting your mistakes.
The friend you try to distance from,
but you can't seem to shake.

The kind of friend
you grow apart from
once your time there
is done.

Even though you're better off,
you still wonder where they are.
The kind of friend you dearly miss,
but must love them from afar.

Well, that friend...

Came knocking at my skull today.

(They told me they might be in town,
but I didn't bother to reply.)

Quick, shut off all the lights.
Quiet, try to hide.
Maybe if I'm gone,
they won't try to come inside.

But resting in the silence,
is a small child's cry.

And they know exactly,

where,

to find

me.


▪︎ mica light ▪︎
I don't know how
To get her home,
Or if she has one...
Does 𝘴𝘩𝘦 even know?

If I reached out my hand,
Would she even pull?

She's been making herself larger.
I can feel her reappearance.
She gets brighter, I get darker.
Interfering with my impulse,
And it happened again...

I forgot how I got here,
Don't where I began.

▪︎ mica light ▪︎
She calls and cries,
But there are only echoes
Bouncing on the walls
Of my empty chest.

She is forgotten.
She gets pushed aside.

𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥?

.

▪︎ mica light ▪︎
Saudade, (n.): the longing to be near someone or some thing that is distant.
A riveting fracture
Of my current existence.
Clenching my throat,
Trying to squeeze out the dread;
The panic.

I've lost myself -
I don't know where I am, or
Where my body is.

Tense. Because
I'm trying so hard
Not to let go of myself,
Again.

"Keep straight.
Keep focused.
No.
Not like that.
Don't think 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁
About 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵.
Don't be that way
About 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨.

It's okay.
Try to breathe.

You have control
Over your mind.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹
Over your mind.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹
𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱."

And it's okay
For a moment,
But the busy hands
Don't shield the silence
For long.

And through that
It comes spinning,
Entwining amongst
My conscious hardwiring.

"You are not welcome!
I don't want to believe it."

But I've been deeply imprinted
To believe
These emotional rules
Are bound to me.

So, often I break;
I give in.

The sheer loneliness
Of the thought
Consumes me.

I wait in the rain,
For when the storm dissipates,

𝘔𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯.

▪︎mica light▪︎
I'm trying to get better at sitting with my self
(we’re in this 'til the end, after all).

I'm trying to listen and not judge,
to ask her (kindly) where those thoughts came from.
Whose judgments are being repeated.

It's not that it's a comfortable journey.
She hurls words in poisoned darts,
with wild eyes of blistering flame,
so sure of my faults that
I believe her more than I've believed anything
in our whole life.  

But I know what it's like to be in her body.
So lately I've asked her to sit next to me, quietly,
just for a moment,
just for a pause.

I think it's working.

She's taken to sitting beside me more often these days,
arms wrapped around hunched knees.
She speaks gentler here,
tells me I am scared we are not enough.
But she lets me place a hand on her shoulder,
and remind her: We always have been.

We breathe slowly as we soundlessly observe
the cosmic traffic of shooting neurons.
Of clusters of clusters of memories
and half-said things.

And I'm finding that, after all this time,
I am sitting well with myself.

— The End —