Panic Attack

• Kristie Smith, Grade 10
• Poetry
• 2016

It’s hard to think and it’s hard to breathe
The moments leading up are hell
It’s like you’re screaming and no one can hear, not even yourself
The pounding in your head overrides any noise
All you can seem to focus on is the perturbation and how it eats at everything,
Your breathing, your friendships, your life.
But the hyperventilation, that’s the worst.
How it looks, feels and sounds
Like bullets ricocheting in a metal box, but that metal box is your head
It’s unprepossessing and it hurts
With the characteristics of a bully.
Repetitively throwing you to the ground, relentlessly lowering your self-esteem
But there’s seemingly nothing anybody can do to save you from the conflict inside your mind
Because the wounded have little chance of relief if they don’t speak up,
If they don’t voice the affair
That is a Panic Attack.