Hey everyone,

I have found it mighty hard to write anything since my son was born, but I have had a little respite today after a pretty bad time this morning, and of course my muse returned the moment she heard me cry.

I have written my panic attacks down before as both poetry and prose (and, if I am technical about it, prose poetry), but I do feel that this might be the best representation I have managed to craft of what I go through when I am struck down by my mind, almost without warning.

Beyond that, I want to let it speak for itself.

Richard

The endless fight

I

The cortisol impales me first –
a spike through the chest
that throws me from side to side
until I come to rest
against the wall, fists clenched,
nowhere to hide except behind
my broken mind;

or else I crumble to the
floor and seek an icy blessing there.

But that’s not where
it ends –
no, not against the wall
or floor,
so waiting for the next
spikes to arrive
I suck in air, or try
to give my heart
the breath it needs in vain.

Between my sobs I cannot
find enough.

The room’s a vacuum,
still and silent, inside of which
I float alone, lungs pressed
against their cage of bone
and in a dream adrenal glands
pump now-thick blood with hormones
evolution taught my body just
might bring me
home.

II

I fight against myself:
I cannot fly – escape my mind –
and deep within my soul I
know I cannot freeze lest I
let these beasts tear me apart
thought-by-thought and leave
me in a place that none can find.

But this head is full of rot
and as I battle for
the parts I want to save
I cut deeper than I should,
and in my desperation I excise
the chunks that keep me sane –

but they’ll regrow, I hope, for as
I stand upon the brink of
the abyss the world returns,
and while its brightness burns;
and though I cannot speak,
the air breaks through
and fills me up once more.

In amongst the bleary haze of
shame, disgust, and now-spent rage
I watch my mortal angel meet
my once-averted gaze.

“You’ll be okay,” she says,
and my heart remembers more
than pain.

Finally no longer lame I stand
and see that little else has changed.
I meet her worried gaze again.

“We’ll be okay,”
her tone’s the same,
and as my broken heart and
weakened brain attempts to
drain the poison that I
made in desperate agony
I see what we can be
once more.

I see what she
can see in me
once more.

III

The battle never ends
and never will.

These waking dreams are demons
I can’t kill,
and yet I still believe
that we’ll survive
despite the shadows
recessed in the darkness
of my mind.

After all, I’m not the kind
to give up on this
too-short life:

I’ll wait,
I’ll fight,
I’ll keep them in
my sight,
and when the time
is right
I’ll shut them in
the cage I’ve built
of light
that shadows can’t escape.

IV

At night
I hear them scream and
shake the bars I’ve
made from tears and
try to pick the lock
I’ve forged of love
that’s hanging on the
steely gate I scavenged from
the remnants of their hate, so

I won’t pretend
I will not cry;
I won’t pretend
I will not try
to set them free –
after all, they are
a part
of me,
and in their burning eyes
I still can see
the person
I have chosen
not to be.