Panic...Attacks
"agora" artwork by Matthew Yates
Panic...Attacks
It comes with the shivers, goosebumps hairs stand up, already rising, demanding my attention, on my skin, so familiar, feeling the invincible onset simmering, my torment returns, loudly like a kettle boiling over the stove, too late to catch my heaving breath, my throat clenches, restlessness invades me, unable to sit, still…gasping in blasts of hyperventilation there is no shelter, give me some refuge from this invisible guided missile landing inside my chest. My once beating heart now faintly pulses defeated by my inner explosions, with all these exhales, trying to grasp this unshakable terror, faceless gripping my circadian is out of rhythm as this constant worry becomes my monster leaving teeth marks, chewing calmness, devouring serenity out of my skull. This anxiety lives for biting scars that keep screaming Goblins, leaving so many demons like dragon fires gusting my wheezing breath, so many screams inside, feeling the burning of worse than the devil in hades, seething more fear underneath my flesh, even when I try to fight off this Evil, with the flashback of these lightbulbs keep shattering scorched thoughts shadowing me, as I try turn off these intense little frantic voiced suggestions that sparks reignition of devastation, ideas keep coming back, return within my inner temple always haunted with more waves of sweats, drowning my voice, swimming inside this sea of darkness always leave me dousing in pain. In the dark, all those cackling echoes always surround, my panic keeps attacking setting off implosions, leaves me beaten, reliving all the faces, lost within unshakeable places, tracing my failures, storming the return of these unstoppable tears reawakens all my doubts that I’ve suppressed, as I try diving under these sheets, there is no cover for this endless ruination, I believe this agony will last forever, my chattering breath prays for some kind of salvation from my gripping chest, under my covers these cursing shadow always feels worse than death.
Adrian Ernesto Cepeda
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Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is the author of the full-length poetry collection Flashbacks & Verses… Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press and the poetry chapbook So Many Flowers, So Little Time from Red Mare Press. His poetry has been featured in The Yellow Chair Review, poeticdiversity, The Wild Word,The Fem, Rigorous, Palette Poetry, The Yellow Chair Review and Lunch Ticket’s Special Issue: Celebrating 20 Years of Antioch University Los Angeles MFA in Creative Writing. One of his poems was named the winner of Subterranean Blue Poetry’s 2016 "The Children of Orpheus" Anthology Contest and two of his poems “Buzz Me” and “Estranged Fruit” were nominated for Best of the Net in 2015 and 2016. Adrian is an LA Poet who has a BA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and he is also a graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their cat Woody Gold. You can connect with Adrian on his website: http://www.adrianernestocepeda.com/
Matthew Yates is an artist & poet from western KY. His work can be found in Memoir Mixtapes.
