Anxiety -- a Collage

Note to the reader: I wrote this poem yesterday in response to Peter Duggan's poem, "Fear and Emptiness", which I highly recommend . I intend it to complement Peter's excellent work on this vicious mental disorder. it is always there the torment of the past the memories will not die so i sequester myself like “The Man With Xray Eyes” seeing too much and unable to cut it off too many memories flashing constantly before this too-small mind slow it down close my eyes and write what i know the world overwhelms me this is what i know more and more and more it overwhelms until the tears flow in yet another humiliation and i am driven to bed pull the covers over me shield me from the innocent children frolicking just outside my window as i grind my teeth it is too much its the never forgetting you see the constant presence that never dies away into the past i anticipate it will happen and it always does the slightest gesture a rolling of the eyes a sneer of condescension a careless unrepressible shrug of indifference --the simple bustle of life-- magnified beyond all reason and branded on my consciousness forever there is no fear you see just dread of future tiny memories my mind can no longer hold when i was younger i could manage my insight drove me to great heights but now in middle age exhaustion from a lifetime of failed repression i have no faith to beat back the tiny traumas of a life time they say “embrace the emptiness” from people with real traumas and i try but the memories beat back the emptiness and force me to relive every moment of casual insult “why not the pleasant times” they ask it is my consciousness you see running amok through my awareness it is broke and i can not fix it “thin skinned” they say but the myriad tiny scars do not thicken they ooze and puss-up and never fade i can no longer think with hope and affirmation of life it is my curse that drives me underground hide me so i do not collapse among strangers in the store so the tears do not flow