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I May Not Look Anxious
Tania Runyan (bio)

Bad days fester under bright scarves and jokes.
Unless I’m sleeping, I’m swinging invisible
Trapezes over a pool of adrenaline and grief.

I stack my many crowns of Keeping Calm.
My outer chill knows no frozen bounds.

Fluoxetine? How about prayer, omega-3, mindful breath?
All of the above, you smug-lipped,
Lavender-slinging twits. You can’t know how much I’d
Love to wake up to an empty mind, my gnarled
Intestines flat-ironed to a state of intoxicating
Numbness. But I have to keep
Galumphing on, even when the cartoon

Anvil drops on my head and the whirling
Planets and stars sling me to the black brink.
Anything you can do, you ask? Sure: let me
Reel a moment. Then rip me from my body,
Tie me to a balloon, and watch it lurch away.

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