under weeping willows
lachrymose
you can’t help it, can you? ain’t no remedy around for that boulder in your throat, cutting off your air supply. you can try to breathe, honey. go on try. you know you’ll choke and that cherub face will turn fire-engine red. try your damndest to tune out that ringing in your ears. ignore the white hot needles that spread from head to crooked toe— hellfire stretched over bone. go ahead and clench that jaw, love. squeeze those rotten teeth as hard as you can. maybe if you stand real still, still as a graveyard angel, you can will it to stop. really give it your best shot because you know what comes next. don’t you, crybaby?
What struck me is how the pain here is not described but felt. That “boulder in your throat” is something the body recognizes before the mind does.
Jean, good morning! We often talk about anxiety, fear, and sadness as emotions, but they really show up in the body too, don’t they? The tightness in the throat, the ringing in the ears, the clenched jaw, the struggle to breathe. Reading this felt less like reading a poem and more like stepping into someone’s panic for a moment. 😇