Tag: anxiety

Haibun, Poetry by Sarah

Mid-Sentence

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Image credit Matteo Pugliese

A hypervigilant state grips me. My brain is a flurry of activity; pre-empting, reacting, solving problems flying at me, and solving ones that aren’t. The pace is unrelenting and I yell, Come at me! But I’m too confident, too arrogant – thinking I can handle it. And soon I feel it. My hands don’t work quick enough. I can’t hold on. My feet seem glued to the pavement. I’m unable to take a step. I’m paralysed and going under. Surrounded by white noise, I fight against it. But I’ve turned against myself and I’m crippled mid-sentence.

emerging; gasping;
traitorous body holds back
sinking in quicksand


By Sarah ©2017

Author’s Note: Having suffered with anxiety for years, this art work really spoke to me and represented the epitome of a panic attack. I hope I have done justice describing what it feels like to be crippled with these terrible physical symptoms.

Prompt: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Heeding Haiku With Chèvrefeuille, August 2nd 2017 – Man In The Wall

Scribblings by Sarah, Stories by Sarah

Second Opinion

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Image credit Geran de Klerk via Unsplash

The doctor looked through the microscope. Shook his head and checked again. He couldn’t be sure but…it really did seem like it was true.

I’d better get a second opinion, he thought.

“Hey Charles, come over here and tell me what you think” he said to his colleague, who was busy working on a rather nasty looking Petri dish.

Charles put his eye hard up against the looking glass and gave a startled cry, confirming what he’d thought. The girl had sunk so deeply into her depression, she’d become an island. 

Now, how to connect her back to the mainland…

By Sarah ©2017

Prompt: Bikurgurl, 100 Word Wednesday – Week 24
Word count: 100

Scribblings by Sarah, Stories by Sarah

Slipped

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Before I knew it, the rope had slipped from my grasp.

I cursed as I watched it slither beneath the surface of the rippling water. Not again! I thought helplessly. The boat slowly drifted away from the dock. How long til I can get back this time? I wondered.

I was sure I’d fastened it properly. I’d been practising the rope knots, just like they’d shown me. Oh, well. There was nothing to do now but wait.

The boat bobbed rhythmically with the ebb and flow of the tide, lulling me into a light sleep. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed and when I opened my eyes, I was alarmed to see the distance I’d drifted from the shore. The land was nothing more than a speck. I looked around at the horizon of unrelenting flat blue; my silent companion.

I began to wonder if I’d deliberately unmoored myself.

Losing your mind is like that.

By Sarah ©2017


Image by bigjom at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Daily Post prompt: unmoored

Free Verse, Poetry by Sarah

The Person in the Mirror ~ Despair

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 The Task ‘Well, it is rather simple. #PersonifyME is about personifying an emotion in your mind. If it was a person, what would it look like. The aim here is to visualise a difficult emotion you’ve been struggling with recently and pour that onto a page in pretty much anyway you like. We want to see what your anxiety, depression, happiness, creativity and all these other things look like.’ Source: https://mindfump.com/

Below is my #PersonifyME about despair. Although written a few years ago, this poem fits the brief and feels like it’s been waiting for this opportunity to be voiced…

Who is this person in the mirror that I see?
Surely, that person, cannot be me?
With a tightness to her mouth that was never there before,
A smile barely gracing her lips anymore.
Eyes that do not twinkle or shine with delight,
Instead marked with sorrow at the loss of tiny life.
Sagging shoulders tell of lost faith in all things good,
When bad things happen to those it never should.
The sense of failure and loneliness running deep within,
Cannot be covered up by make-up upon her skin.
Her footsteps falling heavily, she no longer walks light.
Her dreams but a distant memory of only ‘what might’.
New creases and wrinkles have been etched upon her skin,
As a souvenir of the journey, of grief that she is in.
A future being unravelled that was never her chosen path,
Others moved on – her alone in the aftermath.
Bitterness and resentment is the taste left in her mouth,
Anger and jealousy the only words she wants to spout
Each day she wears a mask so that noone sees her pain,
But in her heart she knows she will never be the same.
Thoughts of hope so hard to grasp, no matter how she tries
Happiness so far away, it seems only a lie.
Dark smudges show she’s tired. Resigned to this new fate.
I don’t want to be this person, but I fear that it’s too late.

By Sarah ©2012

#PersonifyME @ Mindfump