Head down,

Keep moving.
Head down,
Keep moving,
a beating mantra in my
head.

In my head was where it lived: the
voice.
Clamping my mouth
shut,
forcing me to look
away.
Outside remained silent,
but inside was
chaos.

A raging battle:
instinct versus
self.
A tower of cards:
taking days to build up, yet
seconds to knock
down.

The dark blue of the school halls
were doing little to shroud me.
I crawled forward,
dragging my feet as much as possible.

Voices called out:
“How are you?”
“Feeling better?”
“We missed you!”
Words rose in my throat,
but my mind
quickly shoved them back down.

Panic rose inside me
bubbling like lava
ready to explode.
An eruption, biding it’s start.
No one understood.
No one could know.
No one.
I was
alone.

A little
caterpillar wrapped in an invisible
cocoon.
Yet I had no hope that
I would one day become a
butterfly.

My best friends
walked up just then.
“It’s been a long week, that was some cold you caught!”

A cold,
sure.
If the common cold was suddenly capable
of shutting me down.
My ‘cold’ had been building up,
but nothing could prepare me
for the drop.
Like a stroll through the meadow
and a sudden drop off a cliff.
Would there ever exist
a word able to fully capture it?

Slamming my locker shut,
along with any thoughts,
I walked away with my head ducked.

Talk to no one.
Look at no one.
I couldn’t protest against my mind.
Instinct told me
to reach for my necklace,
run it back and forth on the chain.
It will protect you.
You don’t need to be afraid when you have it on.
But nothing could stop my
silence.

Slipping into class,
burying my nose in a book.
The absolute sign of
unwelcoming.

I couldn’t bring myself
to apologize for the absence
of who I used to be:
This bright,
vivacious
being
now a
hollow,
lifeless
shell.

Just a
shadow,
chained to the
background.

Silent.

Silence pursued.
The spell remained
unbroken.
Yet I
was broken beyond compare.

Using every reserve of self-control,
to keep myself from breaking down.
A curled up ball
shrouding her face
with long, dark curls.

Words,
ideas,
conversations
filled my mind.
Yet none found a way to escape.

These thoughts
would remain just that.
Never shaping into
more.

Why was I so afraid?
What harm was there in talking?
You have your name for it:
Social Anxiety.
But I don’t believe
any words will ever capture the true feeling.

Lunch came,
lunch passed.
No words spoken.
Thoughts swirling through my mind,
obscuring reality.

Time seemed to crawl,
slowly inching forward
to no end.
A snail’s pace
is not comparable.

My classes came and
passed.
I remained
no closer to answers
than I did before.

Yet I soon found myself at home
after that day.
Having survived
what I believed to be
impossible.
My battle scars don’t live on the outside.
They remain deep inside me,
invisible to the world around me.

I survived
that day.
A million painful moments.
Pieces of the ever changing puzzle.
Every little piece was manageable,
but I’d break down if I looked at all of them.

Every little piece
requires a mask of the me I
used to be.
The pieces would shatter in my hands
the moment I tried to take the mask off,
each one causing a new stab in my heart.
Yet others would reach out
not minding the scars.
Showing me I could be fluid
on and off with the mask.

Head down,
keep moving.
Head down,
keep moving.
And I will survive.