The Panic Attack Problem

The Panic Attack Problem

Tonight, I need you to pretend to listen.
You have heard it all before.
There is a train whistle in my head
and on some days it passes through
a flower garden & on other days it whines
high pitched, like nails on the outside
of a car, moving fast & numb with screeching.
On garden days, the boxcars pass
in the glisten of sunny steel.
Some of us can not love without the sliver
of doubt & desperation, even when we smile
a girlhood smile of blank eyed optimism,
even when our performance has reached perfection,
there is a panic button that nice girls stir
into the ice cubes of sweet, southern tea.
I am never what you picture me to be.
My bones quake, my eyelids roll upward,
and I am so afraid that you hope I will leave
and I hurry out & drive into well lit areas.
I tie up at the hospital hitching post & wait
for long periods in my car & I listen
to the same cd of american pie, because I know
most of the words & sometimes I sing
everybody loves me baby, both at the same time,
so that i cannot think of anything but double dubbing,
one out loud, one silently, so that I block
everything & I return home, exhausted, to my bedroom,
to the fan, that hums nothing loud & steady.
So loud, that even fear, has to pause & block his ears.
And some days I clean in a she devil dodge & move
too quickly to stop, until I am too tired to care
if fear crouches on the sweat of my brow.
Tonight, I need you to pretend to listen, but instead,
I pretend that you wish to know more of me
than my friendly face hidden in a sense of humor,
my hospitality, my dancing, my soothing touch.
But you are always sleeping, even when your eyes are open.
Even when sadness haunts the depths of my being,
you are still seeing, nothing.
In the morning I will whip you up a fine breakfast.
We will enjoy another make believe morning.

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

Rides into all the places where fear, hope, dread, and wishful thinking crush into one big Venn diagram. Wonderful, powerful writing.

[Danielle Searby]

How I can relate! Great poem.