Sometimes, anxiety can feel like a storm inside your head. It's a whirlwind of emotions and reactions and it can be hard to navigate your way through the storm. Sometimes for me, it manifests itself through actions and physical reactions— sometimes manic, sometimes depressive, but always negative. Somebody once told me, in the middle of one of these fits of anxiety and anguish, that I was a hurricane in a woman's body.

This is a poem I wrote after that experience.

Behold the Hurricane

I come in waves, visiting

when you least expect it

like the tide, early in

the morning, coming in

swiftly and stealthily,

to pull you into my embrace.

I am the rolling waves of

nausea that plague you

throughout the day,

I am the ripples of breath

you try to choke down

in the bathroom stall at work

or in the empty hallway at school.

I am the tsunami of panic

that consumes your body,

sweeps you up into the tide

until you’re floating out in the

middle of nowhere,

no steady land in sight.

I am the force of nature

that lives inside your bones,

inside every nerve ending,

every cell in your body.

Because of me, you are a hurricane;

a whirlwind of panic and

rage, a category five

just waiting for the right

harbor to unleash on.

I am Anxiety,

your old friend,

and without me, you are nothing

but an empty seashell.