in the spirit of the inspiration meme:

[gyzym]

Okay, so, normally I write poems and I agonize over them for months and months and then I show one person and change 15 things and close the document again and go back to it a month later and, you know, rinse and repeat. THAT IS MY TYPICAL PROCESS. But sometimes, for whatever reason, a poem goes HEY HI HELLO WRITE ME NOW KTHNX and pours out of me in one go, and this evening that happened. And normally I would, er, sit on it for months and months, but it is INSPIRATION MEME WEEKEND and nothing would make me happier than everyone I know feeling inspired to write and post their original stuff, and, uh, I'd be kind of a hypocrite to go against that myself.

SO. Under the cut is a poem I wrote. It is, please be warned, about anxiety/anxiety attacks; if that is going to be triggery for you, by all means skip ahead.

my mother asks me to explain anxiety and i have no idea what to say

have you ever looked at a highway sign?
i mean obviously you've looked i know
you've driven the highway but i mean really
looked, seen them for what they are:
giant structural behemoth sheets of corrugated
metal as big as your bed hanging over you
on the hinges of a few nuts and bolts and how
can you never have seen before the potential
disaster waiting there dangling fragile above
you waiting to fall and crush your delicate
human frame that's nowhere near as big as a
highway sign and once you've seen it you can't
unsee it and you realize in a choked six-second spiral
that one letter on one sign would span the length
of your forearm and you are just one of a thousand
delicate human frames passing under this spot
this second and how lucky you are and how small
and what if it should fall this spot this second this
sign and you are caught beneath it and it slams
through the roof of your speeding car and there
is no escape because it is so big and you are so
little and you can't think and you can't breathe and

you have to make
your turn

and it occurs to you as you change lanes that the
distraction of the size of highway signs which is
a stupid thing to be thinking about at 5:15 in heavy
traffic could blind you to the oncoming cars could
leave you too unfocused to check your blind spot
and you could clip the car lurking there who doesn't
know that you are the type to think about things that
aren't going wrong and you could crash and they
could crash and there could be a fifteen car pile up
on i-480 west with you at the center of it and maybe
your radio wouldn't even stop playing the shitty pop
music you've settled on and so it's you and your
delicate human frame and the sound of sirens and
a song you've never even liked and above you the
fucking highway sign that started this whole
thing is unmoved and unmoving and unmoveable and
it is your fault and you are a failure and you
have let down the other drivers and your family
and their families and you won't ever be able to fix
it and you can't think and you can't breathe and

you make
your turn

and the relief is so thick it's almost tangible and you
feel like you've narrowly averted catastrophe even
though nothing's happened at all and it's been the
most intense thirty seconds of your life except for
the thirty seconds before and the thirty seconds after
and the thirty seconds where your mother asks you
to help her understand what you mean when you
mention your anxiety and you have no idea how to
tell her it's like highway signs, hanging over you so
big and so normal that you don't see the danger or
how often you drive under them until someone says
have you ever looked at a highway sign and you
are thrown so badly off course that you can't bear
it and you can't think and you can't breathe and

that's
what it's like.

Comments

[hermette.livejournal.com]

♥

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

♥ ♥ ♥

[sorrynotsorry.livejournal.com]

So... how I feel about the Valley View bridge. (I'm not trying to be flip, I swear!)

♥

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

TOTALLY WHERE I WAS DRIVING WHEN THIS CAME TO ME OH MY GOD

[sorrynotsorry.livejournal.com]

I had to drive over it 4 times a week for a semester. I feel you, dude.

[chaoticallyclev.livejournal.com]

...this feels like a strange response, but it won't let go, so:

yup. ♥

also, I do not know why I have come to associate this icon with poetry. but it apparently is the only thing I'm willing to associate with poetry as an icon. huh.

[arineat.livejournal.com]

THIS IS BRILLIANT! I could FEEL the anxiety. The way it's written, the way it flows gives you that chest-tightening feeling that I always get when I'm anxious.

I know exactly how that feels. I do it all the time. When I was little, I lived in California and I was TERRIFIED that at any moment, there'd be an earthquake and I'd be crushed. They have those stacked freeway overpasses and I'd start hyperventilating, thinking that at any second, an earthquake could bring it crumbling down around us and that would be it. Done. Dead. I do my best not to think about things like that any more, but once you start, it's tough as shit to stop.

Brilliantly written, love. ♥

[knowmydark.livejournal.com]

Love it!

[aura55.livejournal.com]

This is amazing. It's so...familiar. It made me feel the anxiety, the exact feeling I feel when I drive to school on Monday morning and forget to look left before I make my turn.

Also, I'd like to hear this read. Or rather, performed. Like a slam poem. It just has that feel to me.

[fic-kitty.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

Ask me how I felt when I had to learn how to ride a scooter.

[winterlive.livejournal.com]

that is actually exactly what it is like. and a bit beautiful, the way you said it.

[seeingrightly.livejournal.com]

My lungs as I read this.

you realize in a choked six-second spiral

People ask me why I still don't drive and I cannot explain to them why I can't make myself do it. They do not get it. Granted my anxiety is more social than general, but really. Really. How do you explain it? I'm trying to figure out how - I've begun writing personal essays and memoirs about it - but it is so difficult to find the words on paper, let alone aloud.

[bibliokat.livejournal.com]

I don't get anxiety attacks, but yes, I've totally thought about this with the highway signs and what if I get killed and it'll hurt my family more than me and worse case scenarios for no reason other than random things happen to random people at random times, and what if it happens to me?

Um, so as far as poetry goes, I'm not well-versed in how you talk about it, but I understand the feeling you're writing about, and I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.

[theonlytwin.livejournal.com]

most intense thirty seconds of your life except for
the thirty seconds before and the thirty seconds after
and the thirty seconds where your mother asks you
to help her understand

thank you.

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

&you;

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

Thank you so so much. I'm sorry you have to go through the up-down pull of anxiety stuff too, but I'm so glad this resonated with you! ♥

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

Thanks, bb!

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, thank you so much! I'm so glad you liked it, though I am sorry you have to experience these kinds of anxiety spikes as well.

I am...considering reading it slam-style into a voice post. WE SHALL SEE.

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

Okay - how did you feel when you had to learn how to ride a scooter?!

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

Thank you, bb ♥ ♥ ♥

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

I actually love to drive, it's just--these moments happen, but they're so normal for me that I like, don't even really parse them as not-good until I think about them? But when I first started driving it was almost impossible to make myself do it. ♥

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

That's always my goal, bb, so it thrills me to hear you say that. Thank you so much!

[gyzym.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading ♥

[photoclerk.livejournal.com]

Fuck. Now I can't drive on the highway for at least two days.
I do shit like this ALL THE TIME but it's not quite on the level of a panic/anxiety attack because I reign it in and squash it down. Driving in traffic often makes me think of 'what if's and that's such a bad, bad idea. I will not list them, or you will think them. <3

[photoclerk.livejournal.com]

You should get a bunch of people to record themselves reading it and see how they differ! I love diff interpretations of emotion and timing