These Days

these are the days
we cried in fear of
in november
anno domini 2016
and our fathers
told us not to
overreact.

​

Breathe

I am twenty-two when the first panic attack hits

Twenty-two and waiting tables

Paid in proportion to stress--

The crazier the day

The more likely I’ll make rent.

Twenty-two and starting to feel faint:

The thick root of my tongue

Swelling in my throat,

The tree of fear

Branching through my chest.

A squeeze around the heart,

My ribs a cage grown too small,

The hall--

A tunnel retreating

A trick shot

Hitchcock’s Vertigo not vertical.

​

Breathe.

Close my eyes.

Imagine white light radiating from the walls, 

trickling through the brick, down 

To the basement where I start my shift, haloing the air:

This place is safe. This place supports me.

​

Head up the stairs and out the door.

It didn’t work.

I’m sick, something’s wrong, something is

Wrong. 

​

Quit the job, New Year’s day

Fetus-curled, tented under blankets

In the friend’s home I am sleeping in

Since mine became an enemy

My bed an alien land

The emergency lights across the alley

A never-ending shout for attention,

A dare to try to sleep.

​

Cradling the phone

Begging my father to come, come now--

As if the strength of my need could surpass

The speed of sound, the cost of planes,

The cancelling of plans.

Come--

I cry,

In between the gasping sobs

Wrenched from lungs that everyone keeps reminding to

Breathe. 

​

It’s just that I feel like I’m dying

[I tell my general practitioner

Who clicks her tongue and tells me to wait.]

It’s just that my adrenaline

Has been running like a herd of buffalo

Through the bluffs of my body

For three days straight

And I’m afraid that I’ll be the one

Who falls off the cliff.

​

Don’t overreact, she says.

I’ll see you Monday.

​

Try thinking about something else,

My mother advises.

Something positive.

I take a breath,

That breath they tell me will solve it all

Slow, and measured,

Cool air through the nose.

​

“It isn’t what I’m thinking,”

I explain. “I know I can change that.

It’s the flood of liquid fear

Circling like coolant through an engine.

It’s the constant fight-or-flight

And the tongue swelling up 

And the heart gripped in a vise

And the room moving when I don’t,

Which, I’ll just mention

Make it hard to focus 

On puppies or whatever.”

​

I check myself into the emergency room.

I know

my life is not in danger, except

I also know it is:

I will not survive feeling this much longer.

For the first time, I see the option 

Of a self-serve ending, not as an end

In itself, but rather, a choice to end pain.

​

Can’t you sedate me, I ask,

I understand the body, I’ve read up on

The relevant biochemistry, 

So knock me out, I suggest, 

Let’s unplug the machine and plug it back in.

See if that fixes the problem.

​

It turns out when you call in the cavalry,

Sometimes the cavalry calls back.

I find I’ve been conscripted.

The price of an urgent care stay is

An intensive outpatient program.

​

Tell them I’m in the wrong place,

It’s not for me, I’m not this bad,

And they smile their sad smile

Far too practiced--I realize

Everyone says this.

Saying it means I’ll stay longer.

​

In the asylum

In among the inmates

Sanity starts to look

Decidedly insane.

And worse, I’m one of them.

No journalistic mission here.

Now I’m crazy, which must mean

I don’t know what’s true.

​

Day by day

​

Pill by pill

​

Counselor by psychiatrist by therapist

​

I rebuild my life.

​

I become so stable,

​

I don’t quite believe

How bad it was.

​

I work in an office.

​

I quit drinking.

​

I buy a condo.

​

I fall in love.

​

I’m happy, I’m together--

​

My new mail-order prescription

Messes up.

So I go to the pharmacy

But they can’t fill a mail order

It will take a week to fix this

​

And I think, “I’m so much better

How bad could it get--”

In three days, my answer.

​

As the fireworks burst overhead

As I can’t breathe 

In my boyfriend’s lovely house

I can’t eat his mother’s

Steak and corn,

I tightly smile and focus

On their stories of neighbors long gone

So I don’t feel

The tongue taking on weight

The clamp to the chest

The water to the eyes

My body screaming, “hide!”

And I burst into tears

As they drive me home, unable

To explain what’s going on.

​

How humbling to know

After a decade of success,

Stability, new dreams,

I am, at any time

Twenty-five milligrams away

From being right there,

Curled up on my friend’s bed

Pleading with my father

To come now

​

And for god’s sake

Please don’t tell me

To breathe.