PHASES [Poems By Shaun Alvar]

Social Anxiety

She lays there on her bed
Predicting every possible outcome in her head
She grunts and groans at the possibilities
Just an another day to be judged on her insecurities

She showers and brushes her teeth
Knowing full well that she can't clean what's underneath
She stares at her reflection
Criticising her features, saying how far they were from utter perfection

Just then her phone rings
She waits till it stops ringing
She never liked answering calls
Didn't like it at all
Afraid of saying something dumb

She texts her friend that called
Only to realise that she's being asked to go out to a party after school
No way José
Thinking: Do I have to?
She rather stay at home
Listening to He is We
At home, where she could binge watch Dawson's Creek
Without having to worry about impressing people
Just to join their special clique

In that tenth of a second
She already knew what excuse she was going to use
In fact it was always the same excuse; I have plans with my family
Of course there was no plans with her family
It was all a ruse

A ruse where she could avoid any social interaction
Cause she hated the feeling that came together with it
The pounding of her heart
The overwhelming amount of sweat
Then there's the nausea and vomiting that makes her sick to her stomach

To you, it may be easy to start a conversation
But to her, it's such a foreign and scary thing to do
She feels it everyday, that fear
Every time she stands in front of a class and speaks
So afraid of making mistakes
To only be judged, criticised and laughed at
So friend, forgive her if she doesn't always say yes