I’ve got an ambitious roommate. Coffee, schoolwork, shop, booze, ingredients for hearty evenings. Nights when she sneaks in late, an immediate collapse into bed with the knowledge of a full day’s productivity, I feel envy, as I’ve laid in bed for five hours, waiting for the night to pass on. Weight sunken mattress is
something I fear.
Night after night, Internal fights
in bedsheets
like straight jackets.

She’ll invite me out with her friends, subliminal hope to unbound the strap-wrap locks.

My mind’s asylum rarely gives me leave.

She doesn’t have perfection paranoia like I do.
Manic, mental exhaustion.
She can have fly-away hairs, blemishes un-covered.
A room down, but a world away.

Two ecosystems co-exist, like the Vancouver aquarium. Me, a hot, muggy climate, creating my own orb of self-suffocation, and she, a clear rainforest atmosphere after it’s freshly rained—breathe freely and easily, tropical paradise of self-acceptance.

Insecurity is impossible to define. Its malleable, bending, conforms to each person’s thoughts. If tangible it would be liquid, finding each crack and crevice of my physical, mental and emotional self, an abrasive shower that pierces and streams down the body. The liquid is thick and opaque, molasses-like consistency but not sweet. Anxieties are bitter. Next to impossible to wash off. The only soap abrasive enough
Is melodic, euphoric
Music.

Music fulfills my nights. I can make my own narratives, always changing, always new. Each song brings back a different memory, as if I’m living them again. This makes it easy to slip in and out of moods,
nostalgia breeds instability.

November rain is always worse in November,
but sometimes I just need to feel sad without purpose.
Get it out while I’m alone, lyrical venting.

Darkness and miniscule earbuds,
microscopic symphonies
for the private audience of my ears.

I like owning the music in that way, emotional saturation. It’s frightening when you can build an entire second life on this premise, choosing songs in a specific order to map out thoughts, actions, plans of future and past, all in the tiny space between one eardrum and the next.

Anatomically intimate second life.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could choose between one and the other?
Take the good and leave the bad. But I know that you need to experience negativity, pessimism and unfortunate things to appreciate the good.

Nothing should be ideal,
Lest you start to feel
Safe.

Think more, read more, learn more, know more.
More knowledge rarely means more happiness.
The more aware I become of myself, the less aware I really am: complete detachment.

Twinkle, twinkle little star,
Dare I wonder what you are,
Take the wonder out of life,
Impeding sadness, wall of strife.

Those are thoughts that cluster my mind,
Make me realize if my insecurities are worth the anxiety,
Because maybe I’m just a twinkling star,
As others wonder what I am.

But as long as they don’t know, wonder remains an intriguing compilation of face, body, character, strength, weakness
inaccessible.
How long will this endure? Until a scientist creates the technology to reach me.
Because I’m an arm’s length close but lightyears away,
Galactic divergence is unforeseen until a microscope dissects my dreams.

Bring me back to Earth.

How many hours does it take to read one text-book paragraph? I insist that’s a trick question and longer than you think,

For someone who’s thoughts are sweating bodies at a concert, pressed hotly, limb to limb, no room for excess words. I can fit one here or there, but not all in the same place. There’s no use in wearing one shoe when the other sneaks swiftly to the back of the closet. Disjoint phrases and fractured prose. The less crowded it gets, the more exposed I feel. Yet the more exposed I feel, the more words I let in.

Perplexing paradox.

If flexible thoughts could fill the void.
If I knew how to define “flexible thoughts”. I assume they are healthy,
Feel good
Be calm,

Maybe I’d beat my line-reading-record. No more re-reading obnoxious words.
When all you can think of is not thinking
of life, school, commitment
Those words are impossible.

Citations, theses, discussions, analyses are for crystal minds: clear direction.

I wonder how many university students really succeed. Not in marks but in health.

But I’m just placing my own blame on external forces. School doesn’t shape and mold, but leaves indefinite dents in self-scrutinized sanity.

**This was a poem written in my second year of university before I'd fully accepted my anxiety disorder. I am so lucky to have worked through this dark time in my life, but this poem always reminds me of that time and motivates me to keep moving forward!

By Maggie H, 22 (Written at age 20)