Panic attacks

There is a silence
that seals my tongue,
a thousand battles
all left unsung.

My chest becomes prison,
my breath turns to glass.
Each second a lifetime,
each heartbeat won’t pass.

I sit in the noise
of a room full of laughter,
yet drown in a storm
that no one looks after.

I want to cry out,
to say I can’t cope,
but the words fall to ashes,
and silence takes hope.

There is the kind
that is bound to the clock,
a merciless ticking,
a lock upon lock.

Five more minutes,
just wait, just survive.
Hold yourself steady,
stay barely alive.

But the body won’t listen,
the heart breaks its pace.
It gallops in circles,
a desperate chase.

My skin is on fire,
my vision turns thin,
I pace the cage
of my bones and skin.

Reason insists—
this moment will fade,
but reason is fragile,
and fear will invade.

And then there’s the kind
that darkens the soul,
that whispers of endings,
of losing control.

It tempts with a promise
of silence, of rest,
of finally lifting
this weight from the chest.

Wouldn’t it be easier
not to return?
Why fight the fire
when all you do is burn?

The thought is a poison
I do not invite,
yet it seeps through the cracks
and lingers at night.

I loathe that I hear it,
I loathe that it stays,
yet still it circles
and echoes for days.

But even through silence,
through shadows, through flame,
I breathe, I resist,
though I’m never the same.

Not victory shining,
not banners, not cheers—
just surviving the moment,
just lasting the fears.

Each time that I surface,
each breath that I take,
is proof of the strength
that panic can’t break.

And though I feel fragile,
though broken, though scarred,
I live through the nights
when breathing is hard.

And that, though quiet,
though small, though slight,
is still its own kind
of endless fight.