In morn’s pleasant aroma,
with gentle breathing,
I released the burden,
a shadow companion,
not of the world,
but whirled in my head,
a being of my own making.

No irons bound me,
clutching fast,
but threads of thought,
so tightly spun,
today I let them loosen
from their hold,
to drift beyond
the mind’s own edges.

The skies,
a wide and unsealed canvas,
no longer stained
by “what may be.”

The trees
whirled wildly in the gust,
and I, at last,
was given sweet release.

For anxiety,
that foul specter,
was no more than breath,
pale and dim,
a play I’d written,
a story I’d spun.

Today,
I tear those yellowed pages in two.

And where dread had sat,
there is a garden,
its tale told
not in the icy grip
of “what might be,”
but in the radiance of
“here, with me.”