CLAUSTROPHOBIA

Scoop your hands under your knees

and tuck your head into the vee

made up from your curved back and shaking thighs

and feel the hollows between your shivering ribs.

Slam your fragile lids over your bloodshot eyes

and gasp for breath

as though you are low to the ground in a blazing building,

with just enough clarity in the air to drag yourself ahead

and just enough smoke to properly clutter your lungs.

Take a thousand chains and wrap them around your invisible ankles

and tie them to the walls of your labyrinth mind

and then laugh a dead, dead laugh to remind yourself that you can’t win

and then run, rusted jangling chain links chafing at your bones,

run until the chains break and pull the rotting walls down on you

like a hurricane of fears.

Let your sweating tongue and cold arms and quivering lips take control

and scream like your world has been

shattered

and sit silent like a solemn face in church on Sunday

waiting to be damned

and never fight because you will fall.

Pretend your heartbeat doesn’t accelerate when the walls start to close in.

Lock yourself in your closet and say you barely notice the space you don’t have.

Swallow the quickening heart in your throat and relax your muscles.

Say you love the way the people press in.

Make yourself believe it.