Anxiety, lurking in the corner of my thoughts.
A shadow and a silent spy.
You whisper doubt.
Pouring slow poison on my breath.
In crowded streets with others,
your gnawing gut growls and twists
and I wrap myself in a mask of normalcy.
Leaving a façade to face the world
Challenging what I think I know,
Your echoes turn confidence into dark humility.
Your whispers sew unseen thorns,
“You’re not good enough to be here.”
In the mirror of a crowded room,
Reflections of your disdain rebound.
To make me doubt my worth,
And then you slip back into the shadows.
I wince to face the outward moment
In a disguise that feels unmasked,
In skin tattooed with anxiety.
“I don’t belong here, I don’t belong.”
While others softly laugh you slither close
And whisper deep and slow,
“Now they know. Now they know.”
Marking me a fraud in broad daylight.
You whisper that I’ll never be enough,
That I’ll fail and fall. Always fail. Always fall.
None can see the cuts from my silent spy
They see me laugh. They think I’m alright,
You are a stubborn vine that chokes my core,
Denying me praise with your shadowed whispers.
And you hide like a coward cloaked in the night,
Complicitly, I deny you, giving you the alibi you need.
You’re always here but not a part of who I am,
You’re the alien symbiont living within.
And you cannot be without me, nor I without you.
So you and I must learn to make our peace.