Dear Anxiety

dear anxiety,

I

will

rise.

there is no hell you can give me

that I will not make a heaven.

through panic you showed me,

every

worry

is a missed opportunity

for prayer.

my will hovers over my body,

formless and void

the darkness that now covers

the waters

will not forever

soon I will say,

let

there

be

and my cells will leap inside my blood

like fish inside my brain.

I use language

the oldest science, before universes,

to breathe a new earth

here it waits in my mouth to be released

will I make life or death today?

If my mind can invent illness

it can summon health

if I can induce a headache with a thought

I can erase it with another

if my imagination can ruminate

disease to flesh

than it can raise the dead

I

am anointed

to create

reality.

I will rebuild my body

like a city

cell by cell, wall by wall,

I will partner with holy,

quantum energy

to make the only home

that truly belongs to me,

an impenetrable fortress.

dear anxiety,

do you see this scepter in my chest?

my heart in its ribbed temple?

the sanctuary you

poisoned with idols —

bitterness, slander, gossip, greed?

well I have pulled these weeds

and planted fresh flowers.

watch,

as they bloom my esophagus

my mind is getting stronger

my days are getting better

I am healed, I am loved, I am blessed —

and this

is not cognitive dissonance

it is my righteous, creative power.

if my tongue

was loosened by angelic forces

to speak languages of heaven

why not my lungs to expand?

my stomach to digest?

my back to relax?

dear anxiety,

you give me xanax — a crutch, not a cure,

but when my legs heal — and they will —

I will run faster than before.

right now, I limp and lean

on medicine, but I dream

in bright olympian.

dear anxiety,

you will not sedate me for long

what a pitiful settling for gabba

when it’s glory I want

I do not need to be put asleep

I need to be set on fire

with the power of God

dear anxiety,

thank you —

for smoking my chest

and suffocating my breath

thank you, in advance,

for your service

for as sure as fire

brings forth gold

soon, I will be screaming

my original color.