I Told You So (Panic Attack)

The poem came immediately after stating that poetry was coming. That's two poems now in a month, and several art pieces. This, for me, is highly productive. The previous poem written on a page of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, while on the curvaceous, scenic road from Ely to Duluth that always makes me have a bit of a panic, despite it's loveliness, if I am not constantly sipping water and/or singing. When I was younger, when the particular problem first began, I remember Celine Dion on the radio. Then it was my Tori's Under the Pink on cassette, foisted upon my parents lest they have to deal with a freaking out teenager. It should be noted that I had no idea I was having a panic attack, something that had begun intermittently before puberty that my mother would hand me a paper bag for and send me outside to breathe. In late teen years, she resorted to giving me Xanax (while also telling me to go outside and breathe). It was always very matter of fact. I never understood why she failed to inform me that what was happening to me, the I can't breathe feeling, the overwhelming head-maelstrom, the sense of total doom, that it was something silly that I could plainly understand; my body producing too much epinephrine. This being a facet, evolutionarily speaking, of the "flight or flight" ha "FIGHT or flight" response. Which, it's been argued in some of the things I've read, is not the accurate interpretation as invariably, when someone experiences such a rush of epinephrine, they are somewhat immobilised by their panic. So what purpose, exactly, does a panic attack have?

I don't know. Writing this has put that old familiar feeling in my chest, a firm grip in a negative way, on the old blood pumper. I will get the fuck out of this house once I'm done with this blog (and a shower). Sarah needs some Cheerios and the dishes won't get done if there ain't no dishwasher detergent.

But the poem(s). Without further ado, poem one is about Andy, written on the road.

He wears his neurosis on his sleeve,
by an invention of his heart.
With a tug on one,
the other falls apart.
It is not foolproof,
this failsafe he's set;
He's already told me he loves me,
He just hasn't said the words yet.

10.18.09

And last night's, with a first couplet that's been in my head since Andy chose to take the route he has with us:

Any who run from love
be hung from the rafters
Any who stifle love
crucified on the mantle
Any who lie to love
dragged behind a truck
Any who "deserve" love
a shard of broken mirror
Any who ignore love
murder murder murder

11.14.09