By: A. G.

My poetry is inspired by my own experiences with anxiety. It was a difficult and impactful experience, one that still fills my mind at unexpected moments. By putting it on paper I hoped to relieve some of the tension around the memories and free myself of any lingering trauma. All the better if my honest voice can get through to others who may be experiencing the same thing or who wish to understand what teens like me go through and listen to us then all the better.

2nd Place · High School Writing (2022)

Dark domicile.
Wreaths of shade all-consuming.
Sly formless assassin enclosing.
Fear and panic to each rib converging.

A factory of delirium.
Birthed and housed in my cranium.
Shrouds of toxic smog.
Smothering.
Each and every thought.

Wailing and ailing.
Disjointed parts culminating
In eldritch nascencies.

An army of moaning wraiths.
Walls of sanity are all the more frail.
From each wound spill spurts of Wonderland tales.

A flicker of hope.
Only to be spirited away.
By despair’s lingering whisper.

Down, down I fall.
Grasping and flailing in psychobabble.
Anger, sadness, disappointment, despair I feel.
All pale in formless fear.