i’ll say whatever you want, okay? i’ll nod. and i’ll smile. and i’ll laugh, and i’ll probably regret it later, but whatever. and my heart pounds like i’m running out of time, and half my body feels paralyzed, and i just want to be free. so if you’ll let me out of here, i’ll be whoever you want me to be.

i’ll freeze my lungs and lie through my teeth. i’ll forget everything i ever thought i believed.

and then i’ll start to fall apart, and it’s all happening too quickly, and i’m not sure what’s really going on, but in my head it’s all just one massive car accident, and i am at the centre of it. because i did something wrong, and i know it.

and never mind, okay? forget it. what i said. it was stupid.

i penned this free-write poem after a really hard conversation. not because the topic matter was hard in any way, just because of anxiety. because my mental illness just has this way, of making the littlest things feel like the biggest deals in the world. i started to panic afterward, and… then i wrote this.