The Dark Veil

Anxiety is the whispering, treacherous voice in my body skewing my reality. Its gnarled tendrils wrap around my bones and fill my limbs from the inside, seeping tar into my life.

It is not a shaky voice of nervousness suggesting that I am not good enough. I am a strong enough woman to fight off a cowardly, quivering paranoia. It goes beyond such minuscule hindrances.

My anxiety is a grim veil draped over my eyes suddenly — transparent, but distorting. I see the same reality beyond the shadowy veil, but suddenly it has changed. A smile is full of deceit. A beautiful woman reveals my funhouse mirror image of myself. A kiss is full of fear of the future.

The world becomes an onslaught of revealed falsity and terrifying, skewed reality that feels so true in the moment. The exposed terror of the world presses in on my skin as the veil grows to cover my body; shrinking and constricting until I cannot move without feeling as if I might shatter.

My breath slows to shallow, silent sips of air as I sit petrified to even make shoulder movements. Electiricty flows from the poisonous veil into my body and lights my nerves on fire as I sit paralyzed. This time for sure, it’ll kill me.

Hours — days — months pass in a matter of minutes as the veil slowly slips away, graceful as silk. I am again in an unagonized state of disillusion that is the truth of reality for everyone else, but only a landing point for me.