Anxiety Riddled
anxiety riddled me
short confounding rhymes
long entwining songs
she wrapped me early in the darkness
before birds could sing in
dawn
she bound me
twisting
to my bed
whispering
what ifs loudly
rebounding in my head
she followed me down
to breakfast
spelling out daily
dreads then sent
tense tendril tangles
wriggling up my spine
to snap in my skull
punch knots in my core
how anxiety in her prime
flounced and flourished
feasting upon my nerves
intoxicated by my shriveling
incomprehension of the conundrums
she so generously
bestowed
if I was feeling terribly
must it not simply be
because I could not divine
the answer to her insidious cause?
without evident cause
anxiety riddled me
rattled me
shackled me
cackling all the while
shattered me
battered me
taunting and deriding ev er y
in secur ity
she expertly ridiculed
lambasted salted
and peppered ev er y
t e n sion a l morsel
when I broke a proper sweat
she hung me out to dry
I took
t i m e
ge t t i n g o f f that l i n e
buffeted by whether of all kinds
the pins were strong
but at l o n g last
I know enough
to do only what I can
r e a c h
m y
f e e t
d
o
w
n
<<< alarms >>>
and all
abate
with conscious in
then ex
halation
blow out
with parasympathetic conviction
only then she’ll retreat
sing her dreadful riddles
up around
down
some other siren street
Graphix solution (in reverse): s u o i x n a