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Anxiety is chest pain
It’s a pummeling
It’s a rapid-fire blast
A bombardment that leads to a flutter
The pitter-patter of heartbeats
They come from within
leaving the mind searching
for answers
for anything
to explain why
anxiety is chest pain
I can tell you the feelings
I can show you the signs
but unless you’ve felt it
you’ll never know
this amorphous pain
this nebulous constellation
of tightening and gripping and body contortion
Because
when I tell you that anxiety is chest pain
I don’t really mean that at all
I mean what
you can’t see
My meaning is the opposite
of the words I use
And that’s the problem
That’s why we don’t talk about it
I don’t want my chest pain
to cause your real pain
because I’ve been told
this isn’t real
as if chest pain
is a euphemism
for the land of my make-believe
You won’t get it
until you’re there with me
But anxiety
doesn’t want to be joined
it wants a grasp all its own
It won’t work to defy it
The only way out is through
the chest
the pain
the anxiety
And the last thing
you want to accept
is what I’m saying
and what I’m feeling
And, in that way
You and anxiety are alike
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Photo courtesy Pixabay.