Panic and Poetry.

I never really got poetry. I mean it's beautiful, and there are several poems that I absolutely love, but I've never really been able to write poetry. It just doesn't come to me. However, in the last few weeks I have realized that maybe I just haven't ever experienced an emotion deep enough to write poetry. Maybe writers become poets when their emotions are just too much to contain; when the pain, sad, happy, fear, or whatever it is, becomes too much and spills over to create something beautiful. This discovery was completely by accident, you see, I was having a hard time at school, experiencing a lot of stress. Then it was just too much and I was overwhelmed by a panic attack. Now if you have never had a panic attack all I can say is they are the worst. Out of nowhere irrational fear and the feeling of eminent death attacked me. But this was hardly my first experience with panic attacks, and each time they come I try a new way to control them. This particular time I decided to write down exactly what I was feeling and see if that helped. This is what came out on paper:

He goes for the throat,

She braces for the stroke.

She tries to feel safe,

But he is every place.

He's an undeniable presence,

She just cannot find the sense.

She cannot run, she cannot hide,

He holds her up his prize his pride.

She is a puppet to the master,

He chases her and screams 'faster'.

She cannot breathe,

He sits and seethes.

I'm sorry she chokes,

Be better he pokes.

I tried she cries,

You failed he replies.

Forgive me she pleads,

I will never he decrees.

Never?

Never she repeats.

Never she concedes. 

I will never be free. 

Now I realize that this is pretty pathetic as far as poems go, but for me this is incredible. I have tried for hours- and failed miserably- to write poems in the past, and this just fell on the paper in a matter of minutes. And reading it calmed my fear. The more I read it the better I felt and the better I understood my panic.

Now looking back I'm happy to think maybe I can control my panic attacks, and make something worthwhile in the process.