Worry wears no heavy boots,
yet it stomps through our ribs,
leaving footprints we never erase.
It doesn’t clock in or out,
doesn’t break for lunch or light,
it just lingers like a shadowed guest.
Work demands but leaves when done—
a clock ticking toward permission
to set your body gently down.
But worry hums in the silence,
filling rooms with imagined hurricanes,
planting fears that sprout like weeds.
Work bends our backs, yes,
but worry—oh, how it bends
our minds, folding them inward.
When night calls you to rest,
worry is a thief, pacing floors,
whispering questions with no answers.
And maybe that’s why it wins
because work ends at the body,
and worry begins where the soul starts.
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Author:
gray0328 (
Offline) - Published: June 14th, 2026 03:53
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Comments4
a great definition of worry, enjoyed
Thank You Norman
most welcome
A good message Gray that is so true in every aspect and well set to allegory. Its personification gives life to this poem. Yet if people only could understand that there is no need for worry for one has only two options do something about what you have control over or determine that there is nothing that can be done about it and it will occur or not. In such what will happen will happen and one only needs to endure.
It took me 68yrs to realize that Soren. Thank You for sharing your feedback brother
Some it takes much longer. You are most welcome Gray
This holds a strong, steady clarity—almost like a meditation on something that refuses to be solved.
What works especially well is how you give worry this quiet physicality: it doesn’t need force, just presence, and that’s what makes it feel inescapable. The turn at the end lands hard too—work is external, but worry lives where thought and feeling merge, so it never really clocks out.
Thank You Thomas for sharing your feedback. I always enjoy your insight
nicely written
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