Social Phobia

Your tongue is difficult to move.
It is thick.
Heavy and swollen with all the words
You can’t manage to say.
And the noose around your throat cuts into your skin.
Each coarse fibre made from so many unfounded fears.
Your eyes cannot fully take in the room. And the people.
In front of you, the glass pane of realest terror
Makes everything hazy.
And you are battered into submission
By little cudgels you’ve formed for yourself.
All the ‘stupid’ words you are sure you're going to say.

Your own cogitations betray you.
Along with each muscle in your body;
Your constricting throat,
Your heart-beat, syncopated,
Behind taught chest.
Swaddled tight with ribbons of relentless anxieties.
They press in your lungs
You're finding even breathing a labour.

And everyone knows.
Look at the disgust on their faces.
They all know
You are failing so pathetically
At the performance.
The performance of ‘normality.’
So you stand there and ache for
This whole thing to be over.
When you can be away from these other bodies which mock you
And their thoughts which condemn you.
Back to your safe haven.
Where you can find some rest from this beast.