Anxiety Looks a lot Like Me

Just an old piece I wrote. I suffer from depression, so I realize that it's kind of dark, but I definitely feel that I wrote it in an honest place.

There’s a ghost 
tucked inside these hollow bones
of mine.
It’s been there since the first time
I ever experienced heart ache.
It took up residence in my skeleton
and invited its friends with every bone
that I hung up in my closet.

It’s faceless.
It has no name,
no date to retrace it, 
but I’ve felt it ever since I was a little girl.
I can ignore it when I’m alone,
but it leaves me in anxious
as if my failures were etched
into stories among patters on my skin.

We get along most days,
but it knows where I've been,
and remembers where I've gone.
It’s seen all that I've done.
It knows all of my mistakes,
and right when I’m about to move on,
it spews its toxins in my face and my brain
cutting like a knife to my heart.
It’s laughter’s in my ears when I start
coming apart.

I start panicking
around people when times are hard
or even when they’re not.
When it’s inconvenient,
I can’t seem to stop fearing what they’re seeing.
Can they see what I’m feeling?
Do they see the ghost in me
the way I can see it my reflection?
Can they feel it in their presence
the way I feel it in my veins?
Do they see me the way I see me?

There’s a ghost living in the hollow
of my bones,
It took up residence in my skeleton,
and I try to keep it penned up
with medication, friendship, and hope.
I am stronger than this ghost.
I am stronger than this ghost.
I am stronger
than. this. ghost.