Prompted Poem: Anxiety

The clerk at the grocery store

knows what's inside my head before

I work up the nerve to say it.

Extended family,

strangers in the street

and all the neighbors, too.

Even if they don't display it

outwardly, I feel it —

their disapproval,

judgment,

loathing,

predetermined.

Friendly faces clothing

their discreet, withheld disdain.

What else could explain that pain

in my chest

at the thought of others' observation?

I pull the plug on any conversation

before a single word is said.

They say, "It's all inside your head,"

but that's the problem.