#the panic

It starts small a flicker, like a light about to go out but instead hums louder

My chest tightens like someone is slowly turning a key inside me and I don't know what it unlocks only that I'm trapped behind it

Breathing becomes work manual loud wrong

I count inhales like prayers that don't get answered

My hands forget what calm ever felt like they shake like they're trying to leave me like my own body is evacuating

There's a siren in my ribs no one else hears it but it's deafening

I am certain absolutely certain this is how people die

Not in some dramatic collapse but right here sitting still heart beating too hard for too long

I try to outrun it stand up sit down walk in circles like motion might confuse the fear

but it knows me it lives here

and the worst part the most desperate part

Is knowing in some distant, rational corner that I will survive this

But it doesn't feel like survival