Can You Feel Me?

• Naomi Crabtree, Grade 8A
• Poetry
• 2017

Can you feel me?
I am the spike in your heart
I am your mind preparing you for a fight or flight response
I am this…thing rotting away your mind, I have become you
I have made a nest as thick and as heavy as bricks inside of your mind
I have made you the perfect embodiment of panic, splitting image of sheer shock
I course through your bloodstream, infecting the only pure part of you, like a plague
I make you dizzy and lose sight of what is real
I am the demon that binds your lungs and prevents you from breathing
Even now, after the initial panic, you still gasp like a fish out of water
You crawl in on yourself like a hermit crab
The way you are now, in the most twisted way, is pitiful
And the worst thing is, as a sob as scratchy as sandpaper escapes your throat, you accept it
I am anxiety; I am you
So I'll ask again, can you feel me?