From a senior in 2020

Anxiety

Anxiety is hoping you don't get a call back for the job

Anxiety is breathing the same stale air over and over again

Anxiety is feeling your body tear itself apart from the inside out

Anxiety is not going

Anxiety is living at home in your old bedroom

Anxiety is
not knowing
Not Understanding

Anxiety is scratchy throats and stinging eyes
Working the same place as the rest of your family
Having the same job as generations before you
Filling in a silent row
Trying not to be seen
Looking away
Running

Anxiety is running but your body is paralyzed

Anxiety is looking for normal in an ever changing world

Anxiety is crying
Is screaming
Is itching
Is haunting

Anxiety is everything

It's the night you stayed home
It's the night you didn't and wished you did

It's the games you missed crying your eyes out
It's the dances you didn't go to because your chest was caving in
Folding like dough into your lungs
Becoming goo under your skin

It's avoiding eye contact trying to hide from the fire
It's looking for a comforting pair of eyes even though you're afraid
Wanting a hug to weigh you down as your body is trying to fly away from everything around you
Needing a hug to keep your dough lungs and liquid heart from running down the drain of despair

Anxiety is sleeping under five blankets
Four fabric and one a solid layer of cold sweat

Anxiety is short nails and scratch marks
Anxiety is stimming until you collapse

Anxiety is more than just a presentation in class
It's the class clown screaming in the last row of the room
The bully staring you down
The friend passing notes and rustling paper taking over your mind
The the chairs scraping on the floor
The tile being slippery
The door being loud

Anxiety is sensory overload
Loud door
Slippery floor
Scrapping chair
Rustling paper
Sharp voices
Rattling coins
Extra sounds
Sounds
sounds 
Sounds
Smooth coins
Hot breath
Textured paper
Hard chair
Uneven floor
Swirling room
Nurses cot

Anxiety is worried friends who haven't heard from you in a while

Anxiety is constant second and fourth guessing yourself

Anxiety is hard

And above all

Anxiety is lonely