Visitor

I don’t know how to exist quietly. 

And anxiety can be crippling but when I hear the banging of my heart all that registers is a beat for my soul to dance to. 

Because otherwise I will be beat beat beat into the ground by it. 

And I’ve always been a sore loser. 

You see, I fight that beast every day and after 1900 rounds you start to sway. 

What’s that saying? 

If you can’t beat’em, quit taking your meds?

Well I tried that too but then I was more Manic Pixie than Dream Girl and I didn’t know which version of me to pick. 

So I said okay. 

You overstayed houseguest, you door-to-door salesman of misery, you neighbor who can’t catch a motherfucking hint. 

Welcome in. 

This is my home also known as a heart. But of course you know that because I found your pallet stashed under the stairs steps I called intuition. 

And now I don’t know who is making that creaking sound when he text me. 

You really know how to impose on a home and you disguised yourself so well I might as well call you family. 

But that’s hardly to your credit since they are the DNA that let you in my door. 

And I met you like a stranger I thought I had known all my life and— oh wait I have. 

I can’t remember a time when my chest didn’t ache, or my stomach didn’t churn, or my hands didn’t shake just because someone asked me a question. 

And I have to rehearse my responses quick in my head so I don’t blurt out the inaudible stutter. 

The I-I-I dont fucking know how to do this anymore. 

The We-We-We can work this out I swear. 

The D-D-Dont go please I’m sorry I tend to overthink. 

This home is fortified with concrete and steel, reinforced by adversity and ambition. 

But here you are like a black mold creeping in every crevice and where you were once in the ventricles of my heart you’ve now made your way into my lungs. 

And now I lose my breath at the drop of a hint from my friend or my coworker or my mom that I’m an annoyance — or is that presumptuous? 

You thick disease, you’ve coated my lungs and all I can hear over the rush of the blood is 

“all your friends hate you”.

Now you’re in my mind to? 

How fucking dare you? 

So I cast you out like the demon you’ve become but you always come back, this time in a slightly different form. 

But every time I learn you better. 

Every time your influence, it lessons. 

I’ve been here before with the visitor turn stowaway and you think you can sneak up on me but I’m five, six, seven, steps ahead of your game. 

So choke on my lavender tea, 

let my affirmations bust out your eardrums, 

let this medication poison you. 

I don’t think you want to make a home here much longer. 

But if you do, know that I’ve made you a room. 

Down the hall, to the left, behind a locked door. 

A cold an empty cellar beneath these marble floors. 

The predator now turned to prey.

Are you ready? 

Baby, it’s a brand new day.