There's More in My Head: A Poetry Collection on Anxiety, Vulnerability, and Finding Enough (I Am Not Alone)

What happens when you realize you've only told half the truth?

There's More in My Head picks up where the journey began — and goes deeper.

In his debut, David Mackney gave readers permission to name their depression and anxiety. In this follow-up, he goes further. The quiet armor we wear. The mask of "I'm fine." The fear that admitting vulnerability means losing the last thing holding us together. The exhaustion of pretending. The terror of being truly seen — and the desperate, necessary work of letting someone in anyway.

Written for everyone who nodded along to Book 1 and then whispered: there's still more I haven't said.

These poems speak to:
• The anger that wants to hurt back — and the pause where choice lives
• Running from love because rejection is a taste you can no longer swallow
• The skin that feels like a house you never chose
• The radical act of saying: this life I have is enough
• Grief that arrives like lightning, not like autumn
• The slow, bone-by-bone work of becoming someone you can live with

This is a book for the 2am thought that has no name yet. For the one who listened to everyone else's needs until they forgot they had their own. For anyone who has ever wanted to be the string, not the kite — staying low, tethered, useful — just so something they love can climb.

Dedicated to Jordan & Carly — written with the courage it takes to finally say the rest.

Book 2 of the I Am Not Alone series. Can be read as a standalone or as a continuation of There's Something in My Head, But I Think It's Just Me — a 5-star collection on depression, anxiety, and learning to breathe again.

"I am not alone. And neither are they. Neither are you." — David Mackney