When I was little, I was called a worrywart.
Michelle worries over every thing. Michelle is a worrier. A worrywart.
Looking back, I try to remember what young me felt like. I remember being called a worrywart and being told ‘don’t worry so much’ all the time. Like I had a choice. I drank anti-acid medication many nights from the time I was 8 years old. I wasn’t a worrywart. I had an anxiety disorder. I’ve had the same stomach ache for over 4 decades now.
A few days ago, as I sat on my deck and leaned back in my chair, a wasp swooped down behind me. I braced myself for the sting, but the sting didn’t come. I guess I got lucky.
One time, when I was driving on the interstate, a wasp got down the back of my shirt. I even remember the shirt, it was from a Bruce Springsteen concert. The wasp started to sting me on my back and my only choice was to smush the wasp between the car seat and my back. The wasp smush felt disgusting and really hurt.
But I digress.
I sat on my deck and contemplated the wasp. A thought occurred to me how anxiety has tentacles and how the smallest thought can turn into an anxiety that lasts for years. A tiny irrational fear takes hold and grows. The fear becomes a part of the swirling vortex of words and images that contribute to my ongoing stomach ache.
I’m not afraid of being stung. It’s not pleasant, but I’m not afraid of stinging things. Bugs at least.
I’m not a poet. I’m not a huge fan of poetry, or at least I wasn’t for years, I am finding more appreciation for poetry. Some bloggers I admire write amazing poetry. With that being said, I wrote something about the wasp and anxiety. I don’t know if it’s poetry or not because unless it’s Haiku, I have no idea about poetry rules.
Fuck Anxiety
“Don’t touch that. It will sting you.”
She pulls her chubby fingers away from the yellow flower
And the bee
Sting? What is sting?
A dark cloud settles over Summer
Forcing all the Summers to shrink, just a bit
Lunch boxes and pictures
First ride on a school bus
Are there bees? Will they sting?
What is sting?
Reading all the words
Bees. Wasps. Hornets. Scorpions
Don’t let them sting me
If she worries enough
If she pays her dues
Then she would never know. She would never feel a sting
She loves him
His smile. He smells like sunshine and the spice cabinet
The way his pupils look like they are made of candle wax
left in the sun
Love shrivels and grows
On the other side of her fence
Are there wasps? Please don’t let them sting me
Oh god, IT WILL HURT SO BAD
Forgetting dreams
Years eaten by fantasies
Choking down rote
In a cubicle
There might be wasps. I can’t bear their sting
What is sting?
Hair fades
Vanity laughs
What is sting?
Mortality whistles from years not born
She hears the whistle
Wispy. Far away
Enough that she can pretend she hears things
Will there be wasps?
Do I care?
She looks back. And back.
She sees her children and her children’s children
She sees her broken heart
She sees her dreams
She sees chubby little fingers reaching for a yellow flower
She feels exhaustion in her spine
Her back aches for years
How bad can it be?
She walks outside
She stands in the flowers and waits
A wasp settles on her hand
She smiles
And waits for the sting
Heavy.
a little
Beautiful. And sad. And inspiring. But mostly beautiful.
Thank you…I was nervous about this one because it was so different for me. I don’t even know why it wanted to come out that way…I just went with it.
you are a poet. that is amazing. sad, and true and perfect.
Thank you….I have been dealing with terrible anxiety over the past few weeks and am (finally) making connections to the younger me, the one always waiting for the sting.
and sometimes, the sting is not nearly as bad as the worry that it will happen.
YES! The worry and the anxiety are so much worse than what we worry about.
Gorgeous. Really, really beautifully written. And I so relate. Thank you. 🙂
Thank you so much, sister. <3
That is a beautiful poem, but fuck a bunch of yellow jackets. I got stung on the inside of my ear once, while riding my motorcycle (as horrible as that was, I wish I had a video of it: after I got my gear off and pulled the little fucker out of my ear, it stung me on my finger so I threw it on the ground and stomped on it, which threw me off-balance and I fell over sideways like the kid on a tricycle on Laugh In…) and my dad worked with a guy who DIED from yellow jacket stings. He stepped in a nest and got stung so many times that it made him allergic to their venom, and a few months later he was stung again and died from the allergic reaction before they could get him to a hospital. This is probably not the best thing to tell someone with anxiety about bee-stings, so I apologize for that and so never mind…
HAHAHA…I really am NOT anxious about stings at all, so it’s all good.
I loved it!
Also….well, where did you see Bruce Springsteen? When? What did they play? 😀
I have actually seen Bruce Springsteen 3 times. I saw him first in 1980 for The River tour. I saw him in 1986 for The Tunnel Of Love tour and Randy and I saw him in Cincinnati in 2007. All three were great, but I think the Tunnel Of Love tour was the best show of his that I saw. The shirt from this post was from The River tour. It was a baseball jersey type shirt and I wore it until it was a rag.
OMG. I saw that tour too and had that shirt and I LOVED it!
This is so beautiful, so much so that I will read it again. Not only do I want to, I NEED to. XO
Thank you so much!
I love the ending :))
Thank you!
I don’t know about poetry scholars’ definition of poetry, but that looks like poetry to me, and it is beautiful. Thank you for the little peek into Michele’s soul. It’s bad enough that adults suffer anxiety, but for a child to have chronic anxiety…I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you, and still is. Bless your heart.
Our 2 1/2 yr old grandson was stung by a wasp a couple of days ago, so now he knows. I hate wasps and yellow jackets (their cousins). They sting out of pure meanness, and they can sting over and over again, unlike bees, whose stingers come off after they sting once. Our second son got stung by a swarm of yellow jackets on the ear one time, and his poor ear swelled up so bad that I now know what a cauliflower ear looks like. It was awful. I always keep Adolph’s (unseasoned) meat tenderizer on hand for stings. You make a paste with a few drops of water and rub that over the sting for a couple of minutes. It works better than anything. The papaya in the tenderizer neutralizes the venom. I also give Benadryl and ibuprofen.
<3
Thank you so much! And thanks for the sting tips. I learned about the meat tenderizer one when I got stung on the foot by a jellyfish. The guy who rented the chairs on the beach told me about it.
Thanks for putting that out there. It’s powerful. Who says you don’t write poetry?
And as a completely irrelevant aside, the universe once gave me a very rude shock when there was a wasp in the Christmas tree I was decorating… apparently it was not a very well wasp ( or a wise one) as it must have fallen to the floor as I was farnarkling around trying to get the goddamn tree to stand up straight ( I swear they’re cultivated to grow with an almost imperceptible bend so the bastards are angled just enough to cause a lean) and when I plonked myself down to begin the annual detangling of the lights cuss-fest, I sat on the bloody wasp and it bit my arse.
Oh sister, I felt that. That’s so not cool.
I had a bee get sucked in an air vent in a truck Randy and I had years ago. It got sucked in and shot on to my bare leg, where it stung me. So not cool.
I always enjoy your posts, and get a kick out of your sense of humor, but I didn’t realize you’re a fibber. A worrywart AND a fibber. Because despite what you say, you ARE a poet. And a pretty doggone good one, at that. Very nice poem.
Haha..thank you. And we’re all fibbers sometimes, aren’t we?
It is simply enlightening. To me, as a grandma of a beautiful two year old boy, it tells me it may be better to let him experience the sting now than wait for it forever. Fuck helicopter parenting.
I agree! Helicopter parenting isn’t good…neglect isn’t good, either. But there is a great big wide comfortable space to dwell in between those two things.
We had a weekend farm (my dad’s name for a dilapidated house in a corn field) when I was a child. We were up before our parents every morning and in the woods, creeks and on ponies before our parents got out of bed. That was when I was 10 years old. We wouldn’t come home until it was too dark to see or Mom blew the car horn. That is the world I want to give my grandchildren – not this one. God I sound like my Grandfather….Pass me the wine.
That sounds like heaven.
Michelle, there are days, while reading your blog—and today is one of those days—that I wonder if I sleep walk, getting up in the wee hours of the morning and writing my life’s story without remembering any of it upon waking. The fact that you have children and I do not keeps me from freaking out; “Okay, I don’t have kids, so I did not write this blog. I’m in full control of my actions! Well….sometimes.” 🙂 I was one of those kids who also worried all the time, but instead of “worrywart” I was called “overly dramatic”. I began my antacid consumption at some point during my early teens and had a full-blown panic disorder by my second year in high school. It has plagued me off and on for most of my life now, but it’s funny how it was always considered MY problem alone and no one ever commented on the fact that my mother worried about everything and my father would tell me things like “you can’t take care of yourself out there in the world, it’s too dangerous”. It’s much more complicated than that, of course, but if I went into too much detail, it would become a blog unto itself and this isn’t the place nor the time. Plus, I’m fully awake right now. HAHA! Thank you for being brave enough to share so that we may see that we aren’t the only ones out here on this Big Blue Marble that have gone through such situations and who have harbored those very thoughts.
Thank you so much. I honestly don’t feel like writing about this stuff is an act of bravery on my part. I’m more worried that if I write something I think is hilarious, that other people will think it’s lame.
The anxiety, depression, narcissism stuff is a lot easier for me to write, I think because I kind of detach from it.
Take it from one whose friends are always telling her she’s a “riot”—you are hilarious! Intentionally so! Which is even BETTER! Haha! I’m so happy to have found your blog, Michelle!
Thank you so much!
Your poem is just beautiful.
thank you!
I have a degree in English. I took at least half a dozen classes that focused either partly or entirely on poetry. For ten years I was part of then moderated a weekly poetry and short story discussion group. I also once taught (admittedly not very well) an adult class on poetry writing. On my own I studied and wrote poetry for about twenty years. So with those credentials I’m going to offer the following opinions:
1. There are no fixed rules for poetry.
2. You’ve written a damn fine poem.
Hopefully you won’t have any anxiety about writing more poetry.
Thank you!
No, I don’t think I will have anxiety about it, but I don’t know that I care about exploring it any further. That story just kind of formed in my head and I couldn’t think of a better way to tell it.
This made a little lightbulb go off for me. I have 2 children (out of 7) who have complaints almost daily about their stomach always hurting. We’ve tried periods of lactose free diet, gluten free diet, etc. Yet, it seems to always be there. These children (one’s 22, the other is 10) are almost eerily twinlike – their pictures at the same age, are so remarkably alike, that even I (as their mom!) must check the dates to remember who is who. They have uncanny similarities, including fears that I’ve always marveled at. The oldest one has just begun undergoing therapy and has been diagnosed with anxiety. Time to investigate now how to help my youngest as I believe she’s got the same path to follow. Thanks for posting this…
By the way, that is exactly what I look for in a piece of poetry – beautiful and it reaches the soft parts of the heart…
Thank you so much! I hope your kids work it out…anxiety is an asshole.
I am a worrywart too. This was beautiful and wonderfully brave of you to write. Love the poem. I worry myself sick sometimes waiting for the sting when I should just wait an be patient and yet the hornet fly away on its own.
I find that the anxiety is USUALLY much worse than the actual event. Kind of like getting a shot or something.
I’m not much on poetry either, but I understood this, I get it which never happens. Must be my anxiety recognizes yours.
Doesn’t surprise me at all.
YEs! The anxiety is worse than the actual event. I was a worrywart as well as was my daughter. Both of us are much better now. Aging helps. Maybe experience is the good thing in the worrywart department.
I think it goes get better with age…but I still have a way to go.
I clicked on this one because I have horrible anxiety and I was curious what my fellow SW had to say about it.
Needless to say, this one is going to be with me for awhile. I happen to be deathly afraid of bees and I’ve been writing about them recently in conjunction with my anxiety. So this one hit home. Thank you.
I am so glad you liked it, sister. 🙂
Loved this. Those last few lines…beauty.
THank you, gorgeous!
I was born into worry..and I’ve spent my life trying not to worry or have anxiety…it is stubborn..worry that is. I enjoyed your poem. Thanks Michelle.
Thank you so much! I appreciate that. I was a little freaked at my attempt at poetry. I am much more comfortable with absurd or snarky. haha.
I just came in from the back porch where two wasps were either mating or eating each other over my head. I knew they would fall into my hair, but luckily we came inside before it happened. (Whew!)
I love your poem and it’s so true. Remember ‘My Girl’, where Macaulay Culkin was a little friend of Dan Aykroyd’s daughter? He had big glasses and died after being stung by bees in the woods. Don’t worry too much, just enough to stay our of dangerous situations.
Oops! out of…
Love the poem very much.
Anxiety is biting this week and that describes it perfectly.
Thanks, sweetness. I am so sorry it’s a tough week. Yesterday was a complete dick. I’m hoping today is better.
Michelle! I loved this – and I’m not just saying that – I really mean it! It made me a bit teary in parts and when I got to the end I had a big smile. Fear and anxiety rob us of so many moments. I remember someone telling me once, “What’s the worst that can happen? Death – death is the worst that can happen and it won’t, so you don’t need to be anxious.” But what they didn’t realize is that just because something probably won’t kill you doesn’t make it any easier to face. It’s the fear that is the hard part – the part that is nearly impossible to face sometimes. I want to get to the stage where I go sit in the flowers and wait for the wasp.
me too. Me too, sister.
Your talents are endless, friend. That was gorgeous and being a fellow anxiety sufferer (yes, it is suffering) I get it. Well done.
Thank you, sister…
That poem is a hand and it is squeezing my heart.
Thank you so much!