I Pray the People I Love Never Go Through Anxiety

Edward Munich - The Scream

 

The floor has split into more pieces than I can count, mirrors reflecting off my million distinct faces. Don’t get me wrong, the floor is still there. I know because I have my feet on it. But the floor is lava. It has shattered into the bones of my ancestors, looking down at me—or on me, or upon me, or something like that. I am moving towards a well; it’s full, but it’s also empty. It has a strong shell, but the water seeps through. It’s also a mirror, but liquefied, and I can’t see through it.

 

The sun is warm, but it feels like the cold of the night. It’s autumn. There is something creepy crawling on my back, making me shiver, shiver, shiver. The horizon is the lens of a fish-eye, inverted, twisted, and unreal. What is real, anyway? My vocal cords are slow dancing in my throat, and for the first time in my life, I want to stop the music. Everything below my waist feels incapable of keeping me straight. I’d rather crouch and crawl to a corner of this room—if it is a room—and blind my senses, then run to the void.

 

Good Lord, I pray to Thee that all the people I love, and more, never have to go through anxiety. Make me hurt and give me pain; take away what of me You want, and give me a little more conscious anguish if that’s how You do. But do not keep me in between the realms of here and there. Give me a boat; I will row it myself, but don’t keep me in the storm this way. Don’t give me the stars and peel tangerines and papaya seeds, and simultaneously a knife, a matchstick, and so much confidence.

 

I pray no one finds themselves in the cracks of the walls that still stand; that orphans find kinder parents, the utmost belief that the moon shines only for you, and a constellation only you recognize. I pray you see the dark alleys and only remember the friendly ghosts. I pray you never find yourself half-dead, void of beauty, or homeless without company.

 

May you never get to know the other side of this story.