panic

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

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?]

December 8, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i think
my “problem”
is that i have big picture
thinking
with tiny detail
brain
and that just makes everything
overwhelming
all the time

~~~

like
i can see the whole planet
and each conflict
and how the systems lead to suffering
and how it
literally
doesn’t
need
to be
this way
but instead of just thinking about the systems
i then ‘zoom in’ and see
each country
each family
each child
each breath of the earth
suffering
suffering
suffering
and i am stuck
because i don’t want to look away
for fear i’ve cheapened
their individual
suffering
and story
but it’s hard to hold
hundreds
thousands
millions
billions
of people’s individual narratives
in a brain trained to only concentrate on one’s own
so i panic
and breathe hard
and fast
and when the feeling has finally passed
there’s the guilt
there’s the guilt
and i know it’s all going to happen
again and again and again

~~~

so how in this world do i utilize
my big picture imagination and individual compassion
without falling into
obsession?
without falling into the chain reaction of
‘i’ve decided to help one thing/cause/person —
‘but wait, this other person has it worse/’
‘but wait, this other cause is more just/’
‘but wait, this other thing runs so much deeper
and has its tendrils in so many of the other
horrors of this world…’

how do i stop my decision paralysis
when it comes to helping
human decency?

[i honestly don’t know

do you?]

August 22, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the panic had receded
slightly
right around the trip
[maybe it’s because
i was travel-stressed
so i had no room in me
for any other stressors]
[maybe it was just the magic
of a trip
of a visit
to people i love]
whatever it was, i even felt less
the stress
of coming back here — opportunities seemed
gettable
achievable
doable
and i felt like i could march right in
to anywhere
and at least ask for what i want with my life

but now that i’m back
the existential dread has set right back in —
i barely had a day and a half
before i was sad
and panic-ridden
and overwhelmed
and lonely
in this city of millions and millions and millions

and yet i love it here
and it is definitely home
and i ache for it when i leave

how do you do this, nyc?

July 9, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

my heart has been beating
louder
lately,
like it’s trying to remind me that i have anxiety
[as if i ever forgot]
like if it beats harder
it’ll keep away whatever haunts my waking nightmares
[as if that’s ever been true
for anyone
in history]
like my own hand is squeezing every last ounce
of a will to live
to breathe
to be
out of it —
the last reserves
until november
until perhaps genocides themselves die down
but what happens if / when / if
what i hope will be calming
does not come to pass, and instead fate
doubles my heart rate?

will it then cease?
will it then quit?
will it explode like it’s threatened to a million times over
or will it somehow beat louder
harder
faster
faster
faster
faster
faster
faster

April 23, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

why is it that
when i am beginning to be social
on the social medias
i get so panicked and stressed and scared?

is the internet —
particularly the portion
with people one already knows —
really that frightful?

April 1, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i no longer *have* to be anywhere
on april fools day
if it lands on a week-day

and for this, i am grateful

my school-years were filled with
mondays/tuesdays/wed/thurs/fridays
of april 1
and constant
constant
anxiety

it’s not even like i had a prank-gone-wrong
or anything mean like that
happen to me
directly

but i grew up in the age of
disney channel originals
and nickelodeon tv shows
and candid camera
and that one ashton kutcher reality thing
and just by virtue of being aware
of terrible
horrible
pranks
gave me a perpetual panic edge
every april first

[yes, just living in a society
with no personal experience
can change one’s
perception
of everything]

[there’s an implication here for something more,
societally,
but i’d rather spend this foolish day
chilling
and gathering
calmness around me]

September 11, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

how lost
am i
that i don’t
feel things
except panic

~~~

stressing
less
than i probably should be
given
circumstances
but more
than i probably would be
without
anxiety

(are they related?)

(probably)

~~~

maybe
some day
i’ll finish a
whole big-ass poem

(but probably not today)