Panic Attack in C Minor

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All morning I’ve been building to a blubby sticky chord.

This would explain the footprints, I thought

someone was following & every time I turned they

squeaked away through the wall. I’d lift my

hand through my hair & leave a layer of hand, I’d lift my

body & body parts would stick to the sheets. As a boy

I’d clutch each lash around the eye

in the bathroom mirror, I’d try different layers

of pulledback skin & everything hung from me like a cold

sweat. As a man I am weary but have evolved

to be adaptable. All the dead people in films are

just people lying down I remind myself that after

every dream of plunging, and now when I wake up

in the middle of cornfields I tug the cotton out

my throat. What I’m saying is I wish you knew that me leaping into your

body at the first sign of smoke

is just my lowest common denominator way

of saying that this topic is unbroachable. Panic

on the outside is like drowning in pools of rain,

which is silly, but panic close by is miasmatic, makes

“bad air,” means stain—I must stain your skin

when I enter a room I must burrow in your hair when

we sleep. Please believe me when I say that if you pull me back to dry land

all that can follow is smoke.

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Thumbnail image credit: Chelsea Lee