Anxiety is the monster

Dear Anxiety,

I lie when people ask me what I am afraid of.

For fear of creating you, I can never reveal you or convey the truth about you.
You are my tormentor, captor, punisher, and torturer.
You are the inner voice that always tells me to do awful things to myself and that I shouldn't talk about for fear of losing my identity and becoming you.

You claim that we are the same person, yet I am not you.
You have harmed me in ways that I would never harm a child.
Never in a million years would I tell a young girl that she is unlovable, obese, ugly, crazy, or useless.

I wouldn't advise her to burn herself until the agony is so excruciating that it disappears like a light and her nerves are completely dead, as they should be. I would also never advise her to hold a flame to her skin.

I don't understand why I pay attention to you when you make me kneel in front of the restroom.
when you send me frantically exploring the home for a pencil sharpener that I haven't already disassembled.
When you tell me that sending images of myself in my underwear to repulsive predators of young prey is the closest thing to love I'll ever experience.

However, I have no fear of them.
I fear the dark corners of my psyche and the distorted, perverted universe I currently inhabit.

I scream because everything is in my head.
All of it is a lie, so I shout.
I scream because you are ripping through my throat, taking my voice, tearing out my eyes, eating away at the lining of my stomach, reducing my bones to gelatin, turning my hair to dust, and generally destroying everything in your path.

ENOUGH.

That's plenty for me. You are not me.
I was never.
I'll never be.
I will soar beyond this body and your feelings since they are both just that—feelings.

I am above everything—above this, above you, above my thoughts.
I will live, too.
I'll love myself, too.
I also won't let go.

Sincerely,
Leenah