The Worry Eater

Leighton Schreyer

it was a grubby little thing, a stuffed animal

of sorts, striped olive green & kinder-chocolate

brown with a flat face that doubled as its body,

stubby arms & stubby legs & wide-set eyes,

a blood-red zipper as its mouth.

the worry eater loved to feast

on your fears & frustrations, to fill its belly

with the fantasies of your mind; the monsters

under your bed & the ones in your closet—

the despicable devil always dancing on your back.

if what it touted was true, then you could be free

of your worries in just three simple steps: 1. write

down your worries, 2. pop your worries

into the worry eater’s mouth, 3. zip it up!

perhaps it’s saying something

that my mom thought a worry eater,

not a beyblade or barbie doll (the kinds of toys

typical twelve year olds played with)

would make me happy. as if learning to

swallow my worries

would somehow also solve them. & i tried—

i really did—to swallow my worries. i dutifully

wrote them down, popped them into

my new friend’s mouth & zipped it up, the way

i was told i should.

& the worry eater kept

its promise, always

gobbling up my worries, always

swallowing them whole. so,

i fed it like a mother—

lapped up what dribbled & dripped down

its chin & wiped away the crumbs on its cheeks,

the credence of its crimes. i scolded

it for chewing with its mouth open &

taught it not to talk

with it full—manners were important

after all. the worry eater ate until it lost

its appetite but, by then, it didn’t matter anymore;

i had gained my own appetite, had turned

my own mouth into a drawer.

Leighton Schreyer

(they/them) is a writer, poet, and critically Mad queer activist in Toronto, ON, whose writing explores themes of gender, sexuality, mental health, and the human condition. Their work has been featured in some of the world’s leading medical and literary journals, including The Sun, The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Hippocampus Magazine, Redivider, and more. Their writing has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. As a current medical student, Leighton is passionate about recentering the fundamental role that story plays in healthcare and caregiving, and about using narrative as a powerful tool to foster healing and human connection.