you count the steps you take and hear the breaths you make. you're always aware of yourself and your surroundings. not because you want to avoid the stalkers the creeps or the killers in the jeeps. you just want to avoid eye contact avoid attention avoid judgment. they say don't let others phase you yet your entire existence is phased by others' coincidental eye contact. you feel like all eyes are on you and your every move is being criticized in the harshest of ways. you try to tell yourself no one is watching; you're an unimportant speck on the blue ball of earth. but the demons on your shoulders constantly whisper those words of worry and stress and anxiety. they make you depressed. they make you anxious. then you wake up. again. and repeat.