Anxiety Poem by RIC BASTASA

I HAVE been anxious for days
jumping and running
for no visible reason
like a flea
like a grasshopper
always
doing things
because
these actions
are nothing
but routine

a routinary
anxiety
just like
taking a bath
or brushing
my teeth


i worry
For the days to come
And I ask
what are these days?
why are these days coming to me?
like some worms
clinging eating
a rotten
piece of wood

What I am worrying about?

for god's sake
why don't you answer my phone?

where were you last night?
who was with you?
and why are you getting fat?
what food are you eating?


I am wrecked
Nerves entangled
like loose threads
like grasses
growing all over
a garden
like some weeds
in the wilderness
like some pieces
of junk
scattered on
the garage

like some dry leaves
on the part
blown by this wind
in all directions


And blood rising
My head swirls

My fingers tremble
my hands shaking

I could be hungry
have not eaten
Food for days

There is air
In my stomach and it is
accumulating a lot of
Emptiness
it is
Painful
gas building up
and i
will be exploding soon
inside
is a bubbling
hunger
a danger
of putrid air
and filling up
madness

Why I am such a worrier?
good question.

I am weakened
by so much of this bloating up
a pressure
of gas
putrid acrid
accumulations

I want to sleep
But my thoughts
Are crowded
like a busy public market
filled with pickpockets
and hawkers
and hawks
and owls
a night forest
dark and
howling
and

i am fed up with a lot of
quarrels
of bad blood

these worries
are like murderers
Killing my sleep

i am being stabbed
at my back
And I am
Always awakened
By nothing significant

the wounds of insignificance

a moss clinging to a
watered stone
is insignificant
it is always there


I worry for things to come
And they did not come
And the fear that
these things
That comes
that are coming
will choke
Me


Are not at all true
bad dreams.

My mouth is dry


Saliva is sucked
By my own
malicious tongue

My fingers are cold
The heat is
Eaten by my palms
hungry always hungry
for anything warm
for anything warm
that it will always eat


I look like a zombie
I walk like a zombie
I think like a zombie
I see like a zombie
i am talking like a zombie

I am anxiety.
i am some kind of hairs scattered throughout my
forehead and my
body of entangled hairs
unwoven into a face
of a scattered splintered man

Beware, do not imitate
the cold is too much
the splinters so many and so tiny
there will be no reconstruction

or a recovery that will take sometime.