guatemalan worry dolls

I felt guilty in my adolescence, whispering to my worry dolls before tucking them under my pillow. My little woven characters were sealed in their sack and left to work on all my anxious thoughts- they weren’t all too serious, and even now they aren’t big issues at all when I think about it. Always fearful of imperfection, of slipping up and falling down.

I feel guilty now, counting my fingers at the table in the pub. Knowing that you can spot when I’m uneasy is an ambivalence that keeps me awake at night-desperately wishing I was back on the bottom of a bunkbed mumbling to handmade marionettes.

Don’t quell my anxiety, I don’t deserve the sympathy. Leave me not knowing what day it is; let me bury myself in self help books and not your body. Love somebody easier, someone who is self-reliant.