my anxiety has been in control more often than not lately

i couldn't tell you why with precision but i can show you a thousand paper cuts on my lungs and the an equal number of compact weights hanging from my heart. all of the things i care about beat like butterflies with sharpened wings. it hurts to breathe. it hurts to care.

and i am so mortal, so human, so at the mercy of metaphor just to understand what i feel or think or am.

am i more than the sum of my weaknesses?