My little darling, bless her soul

Thinks she has the weight of worlds to hold

Balancing life on a fragile pole

“I’ve got anxiety,” she’ll always declare,

With dramatic flair, like it’s smoke in the air.

She insists hers is heavier, louder, too raw.

“Oh really?” I say from my deep, dark pit,

Where I’ve been lounging, just trying to exist.

“Sweetie, that’s not anxiety you’ve got there—

That, my friend is known as a bad hair day/And some muddled despair”

She will clomp as if she might shatter,

Her dress isn’t a match, her playlist not just right,

And don’t get her started on her handbag’s slight.

And this can give her a sleepless night.

In the meantime, I slump with a groan,

Thinking, “Girl, I’ve battled dread alone.”

“I can’t do it!” she whines, as if life’s on fire,

When she misses a text or forgets a flyer.

I roll my eyes from my grave of gloom, Where joy and I no longer share a room.

And here’s why I’m spilling these lines in rhyme—

My decades of silent storms she scoffs

The childhood panic I’ve known since, amiss

As if my battles are just blown out of proportions

Her new-found struggle, a fleeting cloud,

She calls colossal, while mine’s disallowed.

She says I can “fix myself” just fine,

But hers needs doctors, pills, and time.

She acts like life’s a toxic whirl,

Yet I’m the one whose hope’s a swirl.

But try telling her that—oh no, beware,

She’s queen of the chaos, princess of care.

“So toxic,” she says when I’m barely awake,

“You should really be more mindful for your own sake.”

Meanwhile, I’m just trying to not combust,

While she’s fixated on… eyeliner dust?

But you’ve got to love her, in her little storm,

For she’s convinced her “struggles” are the norm.

And while I drown in life’s great abyss,

She’s worried about nothing—and still somehow bliss.

By Mahoor Haya Shah

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Mahoor Haya Shah