Sometimes anxiety is like cancer.

This stuff just keeps eating me up,
bite by bite,
taking over me,
amputating me left and right,
until it's too big and too strong for me to fight it
and I have to let it just keep punching me until
I fall to the floor
Too weak to last another round
and not loud enough
to ask someone to throw in the towel for me
But at least the pain is over

Other times it's not a fight at all
but a poker game
I always have to risk something to stay in
even when I have no choice but to fold
I might get lucky with a winning hand
and let some chips stack up
But the deck is too big
for me to even try to count the cards

Odds are I'll only leave the table
once I let them take it all
from aces and eights
instead of walking away
with too many chips to carry
letting them spill onto other people's stacks
so they can maybe win

Sometimes

sometimes

I have no choice but to surrender