Poetry

Attack

The sun is shining.

        Everything is clear and bright.

Panic

       Fear

                    You are paralyzed.

Your breath is stopped dead in your lungs.

                        Someone is squeezing your chest.

A fiery, sharp pain blooms where it shouldn’t:

            Your heart.

                        You must take a breath

            but you can’t.

Like drowning—

Seeing the surface

              but not touching it.

You know this is fatal.

            Like falling

only you can’t catch yourself.

       You cannot move.

The electrical wiring in your brain

            has been shocked.

You can’t think anymore

                    but one sentence.

You must take a breath.

But you can’t.

Suffocation

Your heart begins to throb

That slow throb of tired muscles

That can do no more.

Stranger

I remember wondering daily

Why you never came.

I remember getting letters

with nothing but a name.

I remember for my birthday

A stuffed animal best friend—

One thing I can’t remember

is hearing your laughter never end.

I remember that one morning

A postcard came from you.

It said “missing you this day,”

signed by a man I never knew.

I remember never feeling

A father’s loving embrace

Or seeing an endearing smile

On an old, familiar face.

I remember feeling hatred

For a man who never knew me

Because while you expected love

You just could not see:

I never learned to feel for you

From a father’s loving embrace,

So all I have is an unsteady smile

For your unfamiliar face.