Anxiety

Anxiety twists bedsheets in its sleep,
coughs up coffin nails,
drowns out sounds with cotton swabs
as it clutches a locked metal box to its chest.
It hides daisies behind a silicone mask
as it dresses for war, leaves the house 
without saying hello to the postman, 
feet shuffling in shoes tied too tight. Or anxiety
is water tempted from an empty mouth,
anglerfish swishing in a red tide, dried seaweed 
swinging on a line as beachgoers sip lemonade from plastic cups.
Anxiety sunning itself on a warm rock.
Anxiety digging up the roots of a dead tree.
Anxiety scraping faces into the dirt,
remembering names from old postcards 
and playbill casts from a highschool theater.
Anxiety is a musician twisting piano notes into guttural objections, 
scattering sheet music across the pews like a firefighter
on the Fourth of July. It scrapes mud from its boots with violin strings,
dances up to the altar, lies
down in a flurry of rose petals, alone.
Or anxiety is a pair of chapped lips drinking 
themselves to death in the back of a late-night drugstore,
running soft teeth along bloodied wrists.
Moonlight drips through the blinds
while ghosts drag dread out from under dust-lined floorboards,
absorbed in a game of hide and seek, then plucking
square eyes from circular sockets.
Anxiety reaches out.
Anxiety trips.
Anxiety lingers a moment longer on a warm mouth,
waits at the traffic light while listening to Bob Dylan,
replaces squeaky door knobs on a collapsed house.
Raspy anxiety, stone-cold anxiety, anxiety with a fractured skull.
Tearful anxiety, trying on dresses in a low lit window,
too preoccupied with its figure to make the cut. 
Hopeful anxiety, singing itself to sleep,
dreaming of lollipops and listlessness,
of soft patterning feet
on the dark side of the moon.

This post (and my last one) were inspired by a poem by Dorianne Laux! You can read it here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58276/heart-56d23c80cdcc8