PNES

Anxiety doesn’t always arrive
With sirens or signs

Sometimes it starts as a small tremble beneath the surface
Until everything suddenly feels
Like it might fall apart

Like an earthquake
Inside my chest

The core of who I am shifting without warning

Safe places rattle

Even breathing feels like balancing
On a fault line

I try to hold still,
But how do you stand tall
When the world beneath you
Won’t stop moving?

These quakes convince me
That I can’t trust my own footing

And that the next crack
Might be the one
That finally breaks me

But still I try to remember
That this is just
A shaky moment

For the earth may shift
But the earth also settles
And so can I

For even after the worst quakes,
There is still time
To rebuild