Dear Anxiety

• Claudia Toucheh, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2021

You bully me - so eager to pounce at my pride.
Abandoning me, as I rot on this everlasting ride.
Why do you turn the faucet of my eyes?
Do you find the delight of my whaling cries?
You defeat my whole purpose to conquer and prevail.
You hunt me down, beating me alive until I’m shattered. Until I’m frail.
I’m held captive in this institutionalised reality.
Disabled against your systematic brutality.
What do you want from me? Perhaps some sort of ransom?
Am I drowning in pure fiction -is this a gaslighting phantom?
I’m intoxicated by the apple that you’ve tricked me into taking.
You are the serpent to my Eden, and there is no escaping.
There’s nothing I long for most, then to exorcise your evil presence.
I’m haunted by the entity of your demonizing essence.
I just hope that one day, they’ll be an end to your name -
An ingrain on the history of your down falling reign.