Living With Anxiety For 365 Days

Avnika Gupta is  a performance poet/person, breaking out of cages designed as classrooms, concern and comfort.
Working with magazines such as berlin Artparasites, Thought Catalog, terribly Tiny Tales, among others;
she aims to gradually counter the historical alienation of the experiences of people suffering from mental health issues,
so they become a part of nothing but the peripheries of our everyday conversations. 
A Sociology Post-Graduate, Surya Sekhar Biswas is an emerging graphic designer, curating art for a cause.
Having displayed his artistic prowess as the Graphic Designer for India’s First Silent LGBTQ film SISAK,
​ he aims to transform the way people think, live and organize their experiences. 

On some days, my anxiety gently crawls into my bed
and whispers "good morning",
a warning bell for my fragile feet
bargaining with the floor.
On some days,
I sleep with it,
poured into the
marrow of my bones.
You see,
it's no longer tricked into
sleeping under my bed,
or hiding beneath the sheets,
it keeps climbing,
till it's one with the voices in my head.

On some days,
I chase the spotlight,
perfect my pauses,
stick notes on my fingernails,
rehearse my lines.
On other days,
the flickering light bulb in my room is an unfriendly reminder of
one sad face
in the audience
exactly 2 years ago

My anxiety is the middle-aged neighbour
with unpredictable working hours,
he may sleep in the middle of
coffee dates,
and wake-up
with the Sun 
on Sundays.
It's the TV remote
I carefully hide from my annoying sibling
a million times,
a full proof affair,
only to be found under my pillow covers,
while I was trying to conceal it
better than before.

It's the periphery to every thought,
the messy margin notes
of every notebook.
It's the lover
I have bitched about to all my girlfriends,
I swear I'm convinced,
"I deserve so much better" each time,
Only to fall back into the arms of,
for the
seventh time
in the day.
It's my only familiar suffering.

My anxiety makes mental notes
of all auto-suggestions for fear of missing out on
it's own perfection,
but in incomprehensible codes,
so it can continue trying to worry over
trying to understand something
it created on it's own.
My anxiety is the quick rainbow glance,
scolding me for not arriving on time
to dance in the rain,
warning me to keep standing
at the same place,
waiting for the next arrival.

I often ask my therapist,
what if the pack of cigarettes rustling away
in the fingers of a middle-aged man,
an escape route I thought a girl like me would never need,
starts choking me for inhaling the flames over someone else's flesh,
what if this anxiety cripples me enough,
to settle for less,
to stop being crazy enough,
to be lesser of everything I'm,
what if it teaches me how to crawl into a boy's bed with blood at my fingertips and
resistance down my throat.

Will anxiety still linger on my lips?
From wanting to understand things through my body.
I always thought
I had to touch you to know you,
But when I did,
and I looked into your eyes,
to see if you were looking for in me
for the same thing I was looking for in you,
I swear I could see you exchange laughs with Satan over God's defeat.
Honey, this isn't power play,
But just in case it was,
Now I will rise
And you will see.

Can't you see,
All the women in me are tired, so tired,
Our bones would've given up on us,
if we didn't have this perpetual sadness keeping them together,
Our blood would've refused to flow,
if you weren't following our each move with the vigilance of a midnight cop,
Our wombs would've given up on us,
if we didn't push hard enough,
to expel out lives
that could live by everything you wanted to kill.

I don't know where this anxiety comes from,
Maybe it comes from sucking the patriarchy out of his laundry bag sized ego balls,
I swear I've thrown up 79 times since 11:59 pm 33 seconds,
Or maybe it comes from accepting how right your patriarchy is,
When it tells me to spend
1974929229739292 hours trying to lose weight
to look prettier,
because maybe one day,
I'll be able to transport a fraction of the brilliance
from the space I occupy,
To your endangered neurons.
Maybe it comes from being told to
resist my resistance, to your,
bias-propogating,
fear-installing,
soul-wrenching,
systems.

Maybe it comes from chasing techni-colour amidst white and black realities.
From being unable to reach on time.
From being unable to speak in points.
Or maybe all of this is just because
my mother,
she always spoke to me
in concentric circles,
teaching me that no matter
how far I wander off,
I could always
always
come back to her loving arms.

My anxiety is the place I sit at,
holding the globe in my hand,
wanting to go places.
It's the place I go to,
wishing for nothing but
to get back home.
My anxiety is the light,
my eyes will never be ready for.
My anxiety is the hiding place I need to hide from.

My anxiety doesn't rest in massage parlours or in my lover's arms,
It keeps crawling from his wrists to his receding hairline,
When he is tired of
how my heart beats itself
against his chest
each time
he grabs my breasts.
I think he thinks I'm too much.
I think he thinks I'll never be enough.
I cannot talk my anxiety out of things
I've been talking everyone else out of.
I think this poem is too long, too short, too inadequate, too inappropriate.
I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.
My lover doesn't understand.
He leaves.
Anxiety doesn't.

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