Pelgris

Give me a minute to think
Just a minute to breathe
To plan
This thought that a minute to think will sort things
While my mind stays empty
Except for the algorithmic upward trend of my heartbeat
Feeling the fight or flight response filling my limbs
Washing in like a tide of seaweed
Choking off access
The walls falling into place
Locked behind the steel
While outside adrenaline rages and barely held in check
I wait out the anxiety
This rising blood tide instead settles to this new normal
Fighting to tread water
Glimpsing the seabed
And the shore
And knowing how to reach neither
Only the sure knowledge of of how to drown
And the sure knowledge
… It’s coming
And then, all hopes die