anxiety

March 20, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i
often listen to podcasts
[more often than not]
and some of them i cannot stand
until and unless
they are sped
up
up
and away i run, blocking out my own thoughts
with speeds set to
increase
my own
anxieties

but when i slow down
and try
[i do try]
to listen at a show’s natural pace,
i find my heart pounding
waiting
each millisecond
for the next sound to be heard
like my own brain and body
accrue more anxiety
from normalness
and anticipation
than from the sped-up versions
of life

so
do i live in the moments
between moments
where time seems to extend
ad-infinitum
and unbearably so,
or do i continue to block out intuitions
and worry that my life
is speeding past my eyes
at an unrecognizable rate?

i don’t know
i don’t know

March 14, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

so much happened yesterday
and i
didn’t even poem about it
[yet]

~~~

{trigger warning: suicidal ideation, mention of eating disorders}

my overanalytic brain
that runs through every possibility
that made a whole “pro & con” list
on which eating disorder
to give myself
is probably the same thing
that has saved me
from actually killing myself
every time i’ve gotten close
in these
ideations

~~~

distracted
and distractable
and not what i wanted
from my day at home
preparing to do things
i should be doing
should have done
days
weeks
months
ago
but am i just going to
nap
again
until it’s time to leave
again?
again?
again?

February 19, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

feeling like i’m riding a roller coaster
but i have to physically get myself
up
up
up
up
the chain of every hill
pulling
and grinding the gears
until gravity and physics finally take over
and i can let myself go
but then i’m going
and going
and going too fast
and where i once had
so much
too much
control
i’m now hands off
letting it take me
where it wants

and i didn’t even create this roller coaster
i don’t know what it has in store for me
i can only see a few moments in front of me
and for me
who saw
the whole hill i was pulling myself up
[granted, the hill looked
even larger
even longer — i never saw
the drop coming]
being unable to predict
when the next turn
or loop
or tunnel
will happen
as it just seems to pick up
more and more speed
faster
and faster
is a bit too much for me,
but i’ve been on this roller coaster for a while now
and i know
there’s probably another hill coming
i’ll have to pull myself
up
up
up
and
along…

[but what if there’s not
what if
what if
what if this part of the ride
just keeps going
faster
speedier
wilder
out of control
until it’s too fast
too much momentum
for the track
and i rocket off?

would i die?

or would i land somewhere off of this preconceived track
when i can have some control
over direction
and height
and maybe even
not
be on a roller coaster at all?]

February 18, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

my heart has palpitations
not real ones
but those that come from
worrying —
if this is all there is
if this is what i was meant to be doing
if there’s something more i should be trying
if adventure awaits elsewhere
if
if
if
pounds my heart
faster
and faster
and i can’t keep up
unless i
take a moment
and
cry

January 16, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

half-formed poems
catastrophizing stuck in my head
until i think i’ll burst if i don’t
say
something
and then it’s there stuck in my throat
when i remember
actual
catastrophes

all while i’m too tired to sleep
and too sad to cry
and everything feels like a clock ticking down
down
down
but to what
inevitable
terror?

[or is this simply life in late-stage capitalism/climate crisis disaster?]

January 14, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

so
i woke up at 4:45
and played the game of
“what will put me back to sleep”
because my brain was too awake with
anxiety

so i learned some french
and sign language
and cuddled my kip and my puppy
and stared at a crossword puzzle
and the internet
and even tried
just breathing
but
by 5:35
i was still in my too-awake-era
and kip wanted to get up anyway

so we both placed some clothes on our bodies
and i bundled up with the dog on a walk
and fed both animals
and sat down to write
and now it’s just past 6:30 am
and it feels strange to stare at the outside
pitch black
and think about how i’ve been awake already
for almost two hours

but i suppose that’s what happens
when stress brain just won’t
turn
off

December 15, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

no
no
it’s not
2025
just yet

don’t write it

don’t fret
don’t worry
quite yet

[how did i know, though?
how did i know?]

[was it just the association
with ‘project 2025’?
or did i have a view
into that future
year
and know
it would be a shit show
even before it
began?]

December 11, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

at least there’s coffee

with the perfectionism
that stops my creative endeavors
at the beginnings of their journeys

at least there’s coffee

with my obsessive scrolling
and inability to
stop myself

at least there’s coffee

with the depression hounding me
day in and day out
and day out and day in

at least there’s coffee

when the world is dying
and humanity is giving me very little hope
that we’re anything but terror
on the earth’s surface

at least there’s coffee

at least there’s coffee

November 14, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

writing to video game music
feeling the pressure of the world
of life saying
‘you’ve been here before
you’ll get out’
but all i’m hearing is
‘you’ve been here before’
‘you’ve been here before’
‘this has all happened before
and it will happen again’
and i can’t stop my mind from spinning
into the cycles and loop-de-loops
of life
and feeling so dizzy
i want it to stop
i want progress
not necessarily a straight line
but something
more forward moving
than this
constant
back again
back again
back again

it’s like humanity never learns

[and that may be our downfall]

October 31, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i want to write about halloween
and spooky times
and how much i love
this time of year

but i’ve been dealing with deep dark fears
of genocide
and our complicity in it
and how that makes political fallout
even more extreme
and i just want a candidate i can believe in
or a system i truly think is working
but instead we’ve got

this

[whatever this is
in terms of an american experiment
that probably shouldn’t have been tried
and we should have just left this land
and its people
alone…]

but i’m here
this is a fact
and there’s an ethnic cleansing happening half a world away
that i can see as i scroll in my own warm bed
another fact
and the choice between two candidates
two sides
of the same coin
still factual
and yet
one would bring about fascism
much
much
much
faster
[he has stated this in his plans all along — facts]

so i’m actually
for real
scared
afraid
for my life and liberty

and no, i’m not overreacting

[my favorite time of year
has been ruined by election anxiety
and i can’t even feel that affronted
because so much worse things are happening
all over
everywhere]

so please

vote