when you've been trained on a minefield
other places will have you on the tips of your toes.
trying not to talk, look, or even breathe wrong
in case a mine explodes -
even if there are no mines.
to avoid the mines you've been taught to expect,
you compress until you can't move -
even if there are no mines.
your heart and soul lose air.
you minimize your emotions until
you're convinced they're not there.

yet you're allowed to take up space.
take up all the space you need.
your heart and soul don't just need air;
they need shelter, food, and water.
your emotions need room
to expand and contract.
your voice can project and flourish
until your confidence lights up the room.
you deserve spaces where you can just be.
not every place is a minefield.

I don't listen half as much as you do,
You don't understand what I'm referring to.
And this conversation is a mine field,
let's retrace our steps, I fear...
It's not me, it's not you, it's just circumstances misunderstood.
(I just keep on changing but I don't know how to tell you).

You don't really think I should have done that,
but do you really know where I'm at?
And your questions feel like an objection,
sending me in the other direction...
It's not me it's not you, it's just our circumstances misunderstood.
(I just keep on changing but I don't know how to tell you).
But it's okay, it's the way it goes, along the road, beside a river.
Anyway it flows, no one can tell it where to go.

I was stumbling in a field.
Firelight in my eyes,
Burning bright red
in the camera lens.
It wasn't a trick of the light,
the drugs or the beer;
it was a glance of love.
I was stumbling in a field.
Red-eyed and smitten,
Crossing minefields to you by choice.
Perhaps that is the only way
to walk the course of love.

Thump Thump.
Butterflies crawl in my chest.
Thoughts swirl around in my head.
I can’t focus or see straight.
This is anxiety.

And it’s not something I
talk about often, though it’s
more common than one might
think, where my heart pounds so
loud and anxious
thoughts threaten to
drown out everything
that makes me,
Me.

You see, my brain sees simple
things incorrectly.
Texts and sometimes the
thought of leaving the
house sends
adrenaline coursing through my
system like
a thousand shots of caffeine
into my bloodstream.
The logical parts of me fled on the
first flight out of town,
leaving me to feel the tremors and
full force tsunami
on the ground.

Anxiety is a lot like love,
but it’s a battle not a dance.
A lifetime, not five minutes.
Unlike love, it’s often violent.
But just like love, it’s quite silent.

Anxiety feels like hunger, but stronger.
Like fear, but it lasts longer.
Writing this poem has quelled the
qualms that anxiety often spells.

I wish that I could be honest
about this part of me. But it's
one of those things you’re trained
not to talk about from a young age.
Because unless you’re depressed,
medicated, or heaven forbid
you’re not seeing a therapist,
then it’s not bad enough to qualify.
It’s not big enough to report.
I’m not suffering enough.

But if you could just feel
my heart beating fast.
If you could interpret the swell
of my tell-tale blush.
If you could whisk your fingers
through all of my thoughts.
If you could only
hear all of the things I’m feeling
but can’t quite express.
Then you would know that my
silence is telling.
I may be smiling, but currently I’m
fighting for sanity in my own mind.
The mind I feel is no longer mine.
I’m walking a dangerous
tightrope *****.
My mind is a minefield of poisonous
butterflies.
They threaten to swallow me alive, so
I tread the violence quietly.

I fear when I expose you to this
side of me, you’ll only see anxiety
or that maybe I’m lying.
But anxiety is not me.
I am more than mixed up brain signals.

The rest of me is cardigans in the summer,
because it’s cold inside.
I am mock converse and ponytails and
words on paper,
thoughts poured out,
slowly.

I just feel anxious
Sometimes.
More than normal, actually.
But I’m dealing with it.
And I’m no less me.