Ode to the Panic Attack

Your ribcage-grip’s no motherly embrace;
your eyes, red shellshocked craters on your face,
seek out with dry and calculated zeal
fresh idle moments fit for your next meal.

You prey on minutes spent in restfulness,
gulping them whole, leaving behind obsess-
ions and delusions. Pure and holy bitch!
Find someone else to feed on, glutton! Which

mysterious impulse led your mouth to me?
What boiling swamp did you crawl out of, free
and bloodless as a stillborn babe? And why
is my heart’s ease so tempting to your eyes?

Pale serpent-virgin, friend of all my youth,
what will it take to blunt your faithful tooth?
Hysteric prayers only whet your bite,
and candles only lure you with their light.

But if I can’t be rid of you, I’ll raise
a sterile temple to your sluttish ways:
my cringing heart will for the altar serve
on which I’ll sacrifice my brain and nerves!

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