Trapped in My Head

There are days when my mind becomes a maze

Walls shifting, thoughts twisting, every turn a new fear to face

Anxiety whispers like a puppeteer’s hand

Pulling the strings I never agreed to wear

It tells me to panic, to worry, to drown

In every what if that isn’t even there

I pace through memories like haunted hallways

Replaying scenes, I can’t edit or erase

One moment I’m fine,

the next moment I’m swallowed whole

by a storm no one else can see

Sometimes it feels like a beehive is melting over my face

sticky fears dripping down my skin

thoughts buzzing and stinging, thousands of tiny worries

warming without direction

I try to wipe them away but anxiety spreads like honey

sweet at first glance but suffocating when it covers the parts of me that need to breathe

Sometimes I wonder, am I the prisoner or the warden?

Because the bars aren’t metal

they’re beliefs I once borrowed and never returned

A critic lives in my skull,

loud and uninvited

Every small doubt becomes a tsunami

every thought becomes a threat

But I remind myself

A mind is a place to visit, not a place to live forever

So, when the tension rises like fire behind my ribs

I breathe slow, anchor into my body, and whisper gently to myself

You have survived every storm your mind has ever spun

This one, too, shall pass

And somewhere inside all the noise, a small voice still knows the way

a compass of courage steady beneath the chaos

That voice reminds me

I am not my anxiety.

I am not my fear.

I am not the thoughts trying to keep me here

The door is not locked.

The key is not lost

Sovereignty is learning how to walk myself home every time my mind tries to steer me away.

Sincerely,

Suree

Artwork by Suree Sompamitwong