you know
you’re probably
doing something not quite right
when you
have to
schedule yourself to “maybe just chillax”
in your
to-do list.
anxiety
December 4, 2025
is it just last night’s sleep?
is it something in the air?
is it an allergy?
is it the depression?
or is it the actual date of today
that’s making me feel
this
type
of
way?
August 20, 2025
as fall approaches
but isn’t quite here
not yet
not yet
the memories of late summers past
invades my mind
sans consent
[do flashbacks ever ask?]
and no matter how stable
and lovely
and mine
my life is today
i keep seeing
loss
upon loss
upon lost trust
upon that feeling of any control in life
fleeting though it may have been
stolen in an instant
and this current administration
certainly doesn’t help this
weird ptsd i’ve found myself in
everything seems to be
culminating in something
and i continue to avoid all emotions and memories
until absolutely
necessary
August 11, 2025
i heard a stat the other day
that straight depression
[and also perhaps straight anxiety
don’t know specifically, since the show
was only about depression management]
is so much easier to treat
than the intertangled combo of the two
and coming from someone who has been officially diagnosed
with major depressive disorder
and generalized anxiety disorder
[at the same time]
and feel like i’ve never known a brain
without the two holding metaphorical hands,
this sounds quite accurate
what gives me distress?
is it the depression?
is it the anxiety?
i honestly have a hard enough time differentiating the two
since they seem to egg each other on
like the “bad kids” at the back of the classroom,
and simply identifying one
or the other
is trouble enough
how would i even begin to just take on
one
or the other?
[and, honestly, i also have to ask
how
in the world
someone even could have one
without the other?]
watch
in fifty or so years
they’ll change the diagnoses,
and my particular issues
will be called something different
[and maybe, by then, they’ll have come up with
a great treatment regiment…
but for now, i just keep trying to keep them both at bay
as best i can
with the resources available
to me/
to us]
August 7, 2025
contemplating civil unrest
and violence
and propaganda
and slippery slopes
and all the things that my mind is stuck on
daily
alongside the silly things
i have anxiety about
as well
if only my brain could give an indication of
what it actually is anxious about
because, if it’s the very real dangers
that are closer than people would like to admit
[though i will be fair here and give credence to the
systems in place to stop a war from happening, but
the state-sponsored violence is scary enough
already]
then maybe i have a mind that is
realistic
and preparing me
for potential trauma,
but
if it’s just freaked out about the menial
mundane
teeny tiny things
[and i’d actually do ok
in even more “unprecedented times”]
then maybe a medical intervention
to my anxiety is what is needed
at this time
but no, my distress
and obsession
bounce back and forth between
what are very real, but probably far away, fears
and overreacting to daily issues
most folks seem to deal with
mindlessly
i don’t want to lose my ability to be prepared for any eventuality
but, damn, this preparedness is killing me…
June 20, 2025
uncertainty
in what to write
in what to do
at any given moment
day
or night
the uncertainty
is what freezes me
not potential good
or bad outcomes
but all the options
showing themselves to me
beat
by beat
by beat
until
the overwhelm becomes too much
that inaction is the safest path to take
[but it actually
never really
is]
June 12, 2025
how can there be
so much horror in the world
alongside such beauty?
how can death happen one day
and the next, the miracle of a whole new life?
how can those celebrating a graduation/
a union/
pure friendship
be next door to
domestic violent terror
in one’s own home?
i haven’t figured out yet
how to be a happy person
while also knowing
so much that happens behind
tightly closed doors
in front of
tightly shut eyes
because, from my position here,
it feels counterintuitive —
i’m trapped in feeling like
one thing cannot be acknowledged
if the other isn’t also
but perhaps that’s my own black and white
fault
thinking
because there’s also
often
mundane day happening
alongside mundane day
and it’s the grey that
somehow
sometimes
keeps us going
June 9, 2025
i’ve hit a roadblock
in my own lungs
and i can only theorize
about stress and anxiety showing itself in my body
before it gets to my conscious mind —
that’s the reason i can only take full breaths
in very specific instances
and never using the full capacity
of what my lungs should be
and i’m getting enough oxygen
[probably]
it’s just a little more than a little unsettling
to know i have more space for air
and to simply
not
be able to get it
May 28, 2025
frustrations
and stress
and an almost good day yesterday
which should have lent itself to
an almost good sleep last night
but instead, it was some of the worst sleep i’ve had
in a month or two or three
[or more]
i suppose i shouldn’t discount
the amount that stress
impacts my own nighttime
half-waking ponderings…
May 26, 2025
quiet the mind
just enough to hear the important thoughts/
the creative thoughts/
the thoughts that are often drowned out
by anxiety rambling
and existential depression blues
there may be creative moments
inside those diatribes
but i’ve heard enough of them to know —
it’s getting past them
that the true me
lies
[in truth]
kipventures 