Pyrrhic Victory

First, come the subaltern shoots of something's not right

Passerby faces paint banal canvases on each other with point-blank stares, curtailing boredom like expressionless savants. How are they not afraid?

It's the bluster (shh) it's the malaise (shh) it's the SENSATIONS (stay calm)

Gelid fingers don't feel like mine, fettering car keys pocketed deeeeeeeeeeeeep within fastened shorts

I'm listing, yawing, at an all-too-familiar taut brink

Aisle after arid aisle spotlights my hastened gait. Façade fluorescent lights appear brighter every fucking second

Never-near-when-you-need-them EXIT signs come hard pressed for the helpless

Softness before the stygian storm, I feel it now

That signature second coming of tremorous tachycardic obfuscation and carceral confusion

Obvious to no one but me. Heady and hypnogogic, it's a harried rite of panicked passage presaged by n-o-t-h-i-n-g

Triggered BOOM sans stimuli?¿?¿

Bellwether beats per minute race at the speed of superficiality, how is it heaving so fast?!

| Inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale-iNhAlE-eXhAlE | mouthing halcyon mantras of self-help bullshit for heated seconds - YET

Still. Marred.

This funambulating brush of fight-or-flight farrago, fear is the thrice-bitten entity, and only I eye the sepulchral signs

Flushed cheeks, sallow lips, riotous hands ruling my roost in some wide-eyed shutdown of foolproof normalcy

Lassitude begets the body logic.

(c) Edward Swafford 2025

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Thank you for reading. This piece describes one of my many panic attacks. I battled agoraphobia and panic disorder for over 14 years, until I found the correct treatment in the form of a functional once-a-day cure.

Pyrrhic Victory is my first entry into the Somewhere Between Here and There Challenge.

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Title image by Евгений Горман from Pexels.