nervous collapse

"nervous collapse"

your mind is running amok---
a thousand fires in the neuron matter,
we can say the patients own the asylum.

icy cotton balls dab and dance on your skin.
your nose feels punched in,
mouth's roof ticks like after a sharp cluck.

your mind is self aware, separating, amok is not enough,
your body, the whole of it, the i, one electric pulse.
heat on your chest spreads outward
            like a fallen card house.

the heart you cannot feel pulses four times normal,
you can only feel it by touching fingers together,
the carotid is booby trapped, so don't touch!

the monkey men call this tachycardia.
you should lie down now and try to curl up,
your brain is a selfish bastard child
            sucking all the 02.

your eyes see the world as it were many bubbles
and inside your hair follicles sizzle, inside your head
words repeat but there is no motor to run your muscles,
            they seize and spasm.

a sitting position becomes a laying position,
hard to breathe either way---and heavy breathing.
of course you know by now something is wrong.

fear is paramount, the death question is more
fantastic and alluring than daydreaming about
a jackpot spending spree or a manic fuckfest.

scroll now through a list of questions,
enter a queue of riddles, counts of ten,
stand up and walk in circles, your testicles retract,
           preoccupy that bastard still---

show favor to a small body part,
caress your ear lobes and slow breathing,
trust it, this works, massage your adam's apple.

your sinus stings---one finger the nostril and blow hard,
nose drooling, huff deep breaths and smack your face.
little by little, let your self believe BELIEVE
           you will survive this.