in the spirit of the inspiration meme:
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.
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.