Poem - “Panic Attack”

Published by university creative writing magazine PublishEd in Spring 2026

Panic Attack

Happened right in the middle of the dinnertime crush after they saw fit to zombie-mob the window, forcing bodies into a room like the lukewarm inside of a mouth,

The flush of the window took on a white edge 

and my hands developed a bit of extra shake to them after the cacophony had yet to gentle itself.

I took on a splash of grease and was permitted to lament the wound by the patron saint of small kindnesses: my manager pulling me away to panic in peace,

Knowing I’d rather take my worries like medicine than allow them to simmer on the hob,

So I hung back suckling skin where the kitchen-dwellers were rounding up the tallies, ticket-stubs littering the polished coin metal counter.

I couldn’t say what brought it on, too much coffee or the echo of an empty day still rattling behind me before I’d dragged myself to the venue,

Watching them loop: entering, ordering, eating, leaving,

The same smile in a different hour,

“What can I do?” instead of “What do you want?” —

A learned language from a lifetime in the service industry.

Hours churned themselves over and my mind, sensing blank, went after myself like blood in the water,

As though I’d prefer to temper my stability all wrong, leave it on the too-high heat,

Chasing after tasks—some kid spewing mushy peas in my periphery, a table of leftover scribbles and napkins soaking in glasses,

Two men perhaps lovers perhaps not stalled in their departure, taking up space in the mirror across from the back room,

Which I passed by and won an opportunity to have my shame flaunted,

Redness where my wrist should be and a pen spreading ink over the ass-pocket of my jeans.

Time tickles the threshold of the throat, heart too in it, when a shift passes by molasses-slow

Orders came up, and customers snapped their fingers like a tripwire,

As the night pulled itself past. Belly-crawled into morning,

and morning all over again.