A morning run

through a miserable park;

blinding fluorescent

jacket smiles

megaphone praise

bursting skin

splitting headache.

The tongue

in my head and its feet,

licking the edges

of my cerebral cortex,

pushing slippery whispers

into the backs of my eyes,

wet assault

as I pant

panic

and cry.

I found old CBT diagrams I drew to cope with anxiety attacks.

I decided to turn them into poetry instead of painful memories. 

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Kristiana Reed juggles writing and teaching English; in both vocations she endeavours to remind people of their self worth and how dazzlingly beautiful the world can be.

You can read more of Kristiana’s writing at My Screaming Twenties