Jessea L. Vaughan's "Paranoid" paints a portrait of a woman who can never relax. She glances over her shoulder, sure that someone is watching. A rustle of leaves becomes a thief coming for her jewels. Even snow or rain sets her panicking, as if the world is about to end. Notice how the repeated word "Expecting" drives the poem: she doesn't see danger so much as wait for it, and every ordinary sound or change in the weather becomes a warning.
The speaker is an outside observer, and the line "Don't know how she sleeps in the night / Or works in the day" sounds a little baffled, maybe sympathetic. The closing images of "chains of fear" and being "a slave to her anxiety" make her fear feel like a prison she can't leave. The mood is tense and uneasy, with a heavy sadness underneath. The poem's short, plain lines keep the pace jumpy, much like the nervous mind it describes.