"Overgrown Anxieties" by Hazel Shanks is a beautiful and thrilling fiction piece about the responsibilities and negative mentalities that take over our lives. The plants on the character's windowsill are clear metaphors for mental issues such as anxiety that the character neglects. They grow out of control and take over her body. The author uses piercing description and flawless symbols to convey her point. 

This story gives a clear idea of what it's like to have these stresses and worries that we neglect out of sheer fear and what we will find if we acknowledge them. The author shows how easy it is for us to ignore the things in the backs of our minds. I thought it was incredibly interesting how the writer used plants as the metaphor for these anxieties that we choose not to see. We do this instead of dealing with them because the realization that they exist would mean admitting to having a problem. "I tell myself I'm acting crazy. They have no minds of their own, and if they do, they're nothing like human minds. They cannot move themselves around." The character knows that something is wrong, but refuses to try to understand the issue. This story uses alluring detail that lets its readers relate to the difficulties it portrays.