panic attack 

•∞•

I am standing on a pool of red;
I swim in the agony, 
laps around face down animals,
dunking under insanity and holding my breath
because it's stifling me,
whispering hate and shame
and my lungs are forgetting how
to exhume it. 

When will I break? 

I am standing beside a hanging tree;
I strap the rope around my neck,
experiment kicking my feet off the ground,
feel the circulation in my head
halt like the movement in my limbs,
like the branches
of a broken tree.

Is it over yet?

I am standing above an open cliff;
where I am capable of walking on air
and this altitude is thinning my oxygen,
allowing me to lose consciousness,
and then I fall;
and when I fall,
I remember the cliff isn't so far away.

Why won't I stop shaking? 

I am standing on a silent body;
thirty people have gone down,
they hadn't skipped the dining hall,
or called the police quick enough,
and holes are made into their fabric, 
and when I turn,
the revolver is pointed at me. 

I just want it to stop. 

I can't find the strength to stand anymore;
there is no relief for someone who
tries to stand on her own two feet
but cannot because there is glass and rock,
red and rope tied around her ankles,
and this time, as I stand,
shards creep in the soles of my feet
as I stand on a pool of red again. 

This won't ever stop, will it? 

•∞•