Panic sinks its teeth
into my laboured lungs,
my shortened breaths
signalling their imminent collapse.

Breathe in, breathe out
I've been through this before.
It's going to be alright,
it's just a panic attack.

Walking down the crowded street
among the lucky extroverted souls,
who can blind themselves
with the cacophony created by a cold city's chaos.

Keep my eyes trained on the ground,
but keep a vigilant eye on the sidewalk behind,
To be sure fear, won't ever catch up to me.

Taciturn,
Stoics cannot crack

'Fake it till you make it', I'm told
As I tremble under the weight of fear
It's a warm statement, yet one so cold
What do I fake if nothing's clear?

Waiting in these lines
Can be quite boring
At times
Any person in their right mind
Would find something to pass the time

The thing that I found
To occupy myself
Is to occasionally pull one off the shelf
Give it a look
Peculiar are these things
That fill the book
"they are powerful"
"i try to use them"
"to liften my mind"
"maybe someone will find"
"these confessions of my mind"
I wonder... if I wasn't too scared to cry
If someone would have helped me
Bare my mind

But within these lines
Are the thoughts
That cross my mind
Well, just the ones that prevent rest
The ones that keep me up at night
To say all, there would never be enough time
The lines are how I cope
With the things that tug my rope