Panic!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/panic/

At various stages during the past year, I have had almost continuous panic attacks throughout a twenty-four-hour period of time. I know, therefore, whereof I speak. It has kicked off again today.

Panic!

Metallic, coppery taste –

As if all arteries and veins have burst –

Unable to settle:

Limbs wooden with freight of fear;

Muscles clacking their own Danse Macabre;

Bowels twisting in pain –

And the terror of over-turned potty-training;

Head spinning;

Sight zooming in and out –

A camera gone mad:

Lens scarred by too many thorns;

Ears cloth-filled –

Sound a nightmare of whisper and threat:

Death imminent in every caught breath,

Every palpitation of petrified heart;

Sickness and sweating and crawling ants of pain:

Nowhere is safe.

Nothing can distract.

Paper bags – offered by kind hands –

Tear from wetting by brine and mucus;

Breaths out bring spasms;

Breaths in stir panic’s maracas.

A worse rattling noise than ever.

Panic is not slight worry;

Panic is not being late;

Panic is physical HELL.

Panic mimics –

Our worst death-dreads,

Leaves us drained,

Shaky, weeping, desolate.

Panic attack:

Once felt, never forgotten:

An endless Hades of bodily torment…