Anxiety with a Side of Meditation

My skull
is a bowl
full of
scrabbling , fighting, biting bugs.

I catch one end and shake it hard,
but only a worm slips out
while spiders
and scorpions
hiss and cling.

Cling

To my brain.

I take a ragged breath.
Another breath.
“‘Breathe,’ she said, ‘Just breathe,'” she said . . .
she said . . .
My hand clamps against the trembling skull
as if to silence
the endless,
writhing
wail.

My skull booms with another
bite.