Untitled: On Anxiety

[RiverNotch]

[hide]

Sorry, what's the title? [hide], "untitled", "Untitled: On Anxiety" -- titles are important, you know, either to give a name to a face, or to add a very special insight to a poem, and it's not like this piece is a private one you're just writing to your friends: you're posting this here, are you not?

A worry grows
It goes and goes
It stacks in rows like dominoes

It slithers, too - come-hithers you
Encapsulates you like a tomb The first line has the image of a snake, then it's interrupted by this sudden image of a tomb, which I feel would be tied better to the poem if this was more explicitly the snake swallowing one whole. 
It swallows limbs You've been encapsulated, so your limbs have been swallowed. A bit of a mix or a redundancy, this one --  I say delete.
and finds its way into your chest and makes a nest Your rhythm broke. Better, methinks:

"then finds its way into your chest, 
makes a nest
and burrows deep,
sleeps and grows and grows and sleeps..."

Of course, I do think it's a bit odd that you jumped at once from a great beast swallowing one whole, to a tiny beast getting close to the bone, but that's more me, I think, than anything more, er, objective. If you come to agree with me, I'd not suggest deletion, only a bit of the good old "or".
and burrows deep
and sleeps and grows and grows and sleeps
until it goes So it goes? Goes where -- or dies, well, why? So's the natural order of things, you'd think, but since you're not talking about an actual beast, I would think the thought of a natural death would be an important one to talk about.

It twists itself around your neck
and finds your ear
and settles there - another lair
until it grows, and then it goes
It goes and goes This entire part feels rather superfluous. It's swallowed you whole, it's been buried in your chest: it doesn't have to move a third time just to be attached to you. Now, this could be a third movement, sure, but then, since it's just a variation on the earlier stanza's core idea, and not anything new or really interesting (there's a hint, though: round the neck and in the ear, choking there and whisp'ring here, slith'ring tongue and teeth of fear, something like that). And that last part -- goes and goes and goes. So what? So it goes-- everything goes, either dying or living. There's not much poetry in just saying that: the point is you have to make that going sound special, look new, feel profound: so poetry goes!

Also, this:
[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vl1m5FYlAo]