#anxietyawareness
can you hear that?
we're in the exam hall
it's silent
my friend can't hear it
can you hear that?
i'm on the till at work
i get asked what it sounds like
i can't describe it
can you hear that?
i'm in the supermarket
it sounds like a buzz
must be the freezers
can you hear that?
i'm getting ready for a night out
i can feel it sting in my stomach
must be my drink
can you hear that?
i'm in my bed
about to go to sleep
the buzzing is loud
the stinging creates a pit
i can hear it
i can hear it outside
i can hear it inside
i am restless
i can see it
i'm looking in the mirror
the bees are swarming my body
i don't know why they won't leave
this isn't about bees.
Mar 1
Mar 1, 2026 at 5:19 PM UTC
I have always been a child of the sea
With nowhere else to flee
So I cried myself an ocean
Made of the same salt and sorrows
But this year I've raised the tides
Not deep enough to swim, but just
enough to drown
And there's nowhere left to hide
But in the ocean that I've cried
Feb 15
Feb 15, 2026 at 1:34 AM UTC
My dog-soul forgets to feed
and starves black,
paces circles for a bed
and with dead weight,
settles
thought and action,
usually smitten with intricacies,
are quietly smothered to nothing
a flat purgatory
scored with white noise, overcast
rendered in a pauper’s palette
on a canvas with no edge
ticks remain untocked
until at some distance
a mechanism is rewound
and a leash jangled
for an ear to lazily lift again
Oct 10, 2020
Oct 10, 2020 at 8:17 AM UTC
Three AM awake, aching with lateness
wrestling alone
even if a significant other is next to you
or little breaths flutter in next rooms
Shadow boxing ridiculous odds
in a world and heart full
of treacle thick worries
weighting your punches ineffectual
just like in the fear-fever dreams
that woke you
You skirt the maw below
resting place of your almighty failures
as the sick orange glow
breaches curtains and makes
familiar shapes judgmental
tut tut tutting at your uselessness
Here, you are defenceless
Here, the black thoughts insinuate,
find cracks to prise and plant suggestions
of a better world without you in it:
the limit of you
Dig deep, my human kin
quietly get up,
make a cup of tea,
write a message or two
to yourself, or for others later
Bide and wait
for the mute loved heaviness of sleep to return
or the welcome thinness of morning light
to wash the darkness back
In the new day, reach out,
with steady voice or bubble-snot,
be heard and seen
by friends or strangers
and try to heal again
Oct 3, 2020
Oct 3, 2020 at 9:03 AM UTC
Please don’t tell me
“you’re too young
to be tired.”
I’ll be as tired
as I dang-we’ll please.
There are so many ways
to be “spent”
beyond what you see
physically—
weariness runs more
than skin-deep.
So don’t tell me how
you think I should feel,
because you could
never understand.
My brain, it thrums constantly
and drains me emotionally,
in ways that you
can’t fix with sleep.
A. I. Myles 18 June, 2o19 @athenaeumthoughts
Jun 18, 2019
Jun 18, 2019 at 9:23 PM UTC
Is this what “it” looks like?
The jumbled and frantic mess of
a wit
without constraint-
without silence,
calm, or congeniality?
Is this what it “feels” like?
A tornado of turbulent misconceptions,
strewn about
like leaves on the wind-
peppered with the biting
chill
of crisp droplets,
soaking through to skin and bone.
Is this “just how it goes”?
When the grey and black blanket of night
and sadness and just existential emptiness
cloud the sky.
When the darkness that surrounds encroaches,
blurring the point where the horizon
meets terra firma.
Would the power lines
connecting the neurological
pathways break?
Would the ceiling of introspection
fly off of the supports that so long
held it in place?
What is left when the
onslaught of the brain
brouhaha slows and only the
photographs, the memories linger;
when the dust of duress settles?
What follows when
the final downpour
of shattered expectations
fall,
leaving the silent and still
dejection
that comes at the end?
Is that the end?
Could I wipe the rain from my eyes,
to see the brightening of the day?
Could I see the illumination of the sun
and the clearing of the sky?
What about the curve of crystalline
precipitation, lingering in empyrean;
brimming with a wash of beauty
known only to those who behold it?
Is that the end?
When and what and
where is the end?
- A. I. Myles 30 May, 2019
May 31, 2019
May 31, 2019 at 5:02 PM UTC
*Intertwine my troubled mind
With simplicity and blind
Me from the morose truth of things
Be the very thing that brings
Out the best of this world so dark
Open up my heart and spark
Up a life that will be better
Than this listlessness I'm bound to weather
It's no secret that I'll miss
The comfort of my deep abyss
Though it's become so familiar to me
I've longed reach beyond and see
Things without the stormy haze
So ready to step out and blaze
A brand new path to feeling well
No longer do I wish to dwell
On everything that could go wrong
I understand that I am strong
Enough to handle this and in spite
of it all I'll be alright.*
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 10:28 PM UTC