How Anxieties leak into our Dreams

It's always the same place; A leafy forest that bathes itself in the late afternoon glow of an infinite autumn. 

For a second there, I feel completely alone. I can't even hear bird song, the rustling of wind in the leaves or a crunch of twigs under the foot of a fallow deer. It's almost as if I'm the last human on Earth, and everything has ended. This forest is all that's left, with only me in it. 

After a while I begin to realise, I'm not alone. How silly of me; I'm seldom alone. It rarely leaves me any more, I try so hard to lose it. To run away. To hide. It always finds me. every single time.

It's a presence... always lurking in the background. guarding me from the rest of the world. Attacking anyone that comes near me, keeping me all to itself. Is that why I'm the only person left? 

It's ok. Its not so bad here... I have everything I need to get by. Sometimes it's even nice, the loneliness. 

Often, I even go looking for it, like a masochist. I've grown so used to it's company, that I beg for its return when it's gone. I watch it curiously, not sure If I truly understand it, nor it me. Sometimes we watch each other like a silent elderly married pair, that have nothing left to say to each other.

Sometimes we walk side by side

and sometimes.... it gets me. 

walking with anxiety,
A short Photo story
by Sarah Porteus

Model: Keren Margetts