What do you think of when you say the word, panic? Does your mind’s eye automatically take you to a scene of utter chaos? Maybe you see fire and explosions. Maybe you see people running around mindlessly in absolute disarray. Perhaps you picture someone wailing at the top of their lungs and gasping for air between sobs.

This is the thing about panic, though.

It can be quiet.

It can remain completely unseen and unnoticed.

It can exist right under your nose and you didn’t even know it was there.

Look closer at the woman sitting in the patio chair. At first glance you see her bright smile and hear her carefree laughter. She leans back in her chair taking a sip of her wine. The cake she just served her company turned out perfectly and everyone complimented her craft...but, here’s what you’re missing.

Listen. Do you hear how fast she’s breathing? Her lungs feel as if they’re being crushed by a boulder as she quietly struggles through each breath. Do know how hard her heart is pounding? If you were to reach over and take her hand, they would be cold, clammy, and sweaty. She’s fighting like hell to hold back the tears. They burn hot behind her eyes, but she refuses to let them be seen. She is analyzing her every move, every word that comes out of her mouth and the mouths of those around her. Should she have said this or should she have done that? She feels as if she’s going to break under her own pressure. It’s taking every fiber of strength inside of her to not get up and run away from them so she can just be alone. But she’s paralyzed. She knows, she knows damn well what this feeling is.

Panic.

She doesn’t know what to do, so she takes another sip of her wine, laughs at a joke she didn’t hear, and smiles.

In the soft, amber twilight between lucidity and slumber lay my thoughts.

Words teasing and taunting

as I desperately try to sleep.

One, two, three.

I count to silence the thoughts

I seek so desperately during the day.

If only I could invent a way to transcribe

my thoughts as I lay in bed.

Twenty one, twenty two, twenty three.

Creativity surges through my body

like an electric flash.

All day, I search for that same surge.

If only I could plug into the half lucid mind.

I think about getting out a pencil.

Forty seven, forty eight, forty nine.

The minute I grab

a pen,

a pencil,

my phone,

anything to transcribe

what is coursing through my mind

the muses will scatter off on the coattails of a shooting star with a laugh at my misfortune.

Every night the torture continues.

I've tried silencing the voices with alcohol.

Seventy five, seventy six, seventy seven.

I'm so jealous of my husband's heavy breathing.

The silence is deafening.

Why must I bear this torture?

Vivid pictures dance through my head

asking to be released.

To be let into the world.

One hundred one, one hundred two, one hundred three.

Every night I tell myself the same lie,

I'll remember these brilliant ideas

and breathe them into life tomorrow.

Knowing the myth I'm telling.

Seeking the sweet solace of sleep.

One hundred fifteen, one hundred sixteen, one hundred seventeen.

My teeth hurt as I clench my jaw in desperation.

My back aches.

I contemplate getting up and writing.

Worrying I'll wake my slumbering partner.

I turn towards him and seek his warm hand.

One hundred thirty six, one hundred thirty seven, one hundred thirty eight, one hundred thirty…

And they're gone again.

Ghosts of my imagination to taunt me again.

why try so hard if we know how it's going to end? eve asked the sea quietly, knowing the stars would soon hear of her treachery. but it was day, the sun kissed her skin with sincerity and the wind blew the hair out of her face gently. for the moment, she was safe and protected, while still being out in the open. right now, she was youth and innocence and everything in between, which was what she needed.

we've missed you, eve. never leave us again, don't lose faith. and the sea knew better than to answer her question. instead, it washed seaweed onto the sand next to her feet.

and what have you brought me? eve was growing irritated, as the memories and thoughts of why she left the sea were quickly resurfacing. it was too abstract for her, even when she needed it the most.

just look closer, please. the sea begged, and the cool wave at her feet reminded eve of how kind it can be.

slowly, eve picked up the seaweed and held it closer. it was three strands of seaweed braided together, each a different shade of green.

one was the light green of the grass, reminding eve of when she ran through the fields with that village boy all those summers ago, back when she was naive enough to think nothing mattered besides love.

the second strand was emerald green, reminding eve of the one on queen serena's crown and all the times she was encouraged to try it on. she remembered the glint in queen serena's eyes and sparkled from the jewel on the crown, when eve let her name slip without the title for the first time.

as for the third, the darkest strand, it was the dark green of that evergreen tree during midnight that stood next to eve as she hugged the witch of dusk, the closest thing to family she'd ever known.

one for each of your most innocent moments, one for each of your biggest weaknesses. the sea began to pull away as it whispered the words, hinting at eve it was time for her to leave.

Three minutes seems like an infinite time when you're a child but the older you get the more you realize how quickly time flies. It used to take forever for Christmas to come. Christmas always brought home my dad. Nothing could ever top that gift. The tinsel. The lights. The glitter hanging from the tree and everywhere else. Somewhere along the line it seems to have all lost its shine. Everything seems to have lost its shine as I've gotten older. Nothing seems to glitter like I remember the tree glittering on Christmas morning. I can still remember the smell of tobacco on my dad's flannel shirt. A smell that forever makes me think of comfort and stability. I love to wrap myself in a flannel shirt on a cold day. It's like a hug from my father.

The jurors were dropping like flies!

I smiled wickedly to myself in the jury lunchroom as I nibbled on my sandwich which I had brought from home. I knew the defendant was not guilty and I had enough remorse to make absolutely sure that the jury would not bring a guilty verdict.

The first two deceased jurors were replaced by two alternates. How did they die, you ask? Well, the first one died in the cafeteria of an alleged “heart attack” but I knew that I had slipped a small vial of sweet antifreeze in his iced tea. I had watched him two days ago and knew that he enjoyed it rather sweet. We were not sequestered so I was able to go home at night and slip the antifreeze into a hand sanitizer container in my purse. After all, who would suspect a hand sanitizer because we all knew the surfaces in the jury room were not very clean.

Unfortunately, the second juror slipped on spilled grease as he was getting into his chair in the lunchroom. Obviously, someone must have dropped something slippery by the chair where he usually sat. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital with a cracked skull and a hematoma and unfortunately did not make it.

Now there were ten! Somehow, I smirked as I thought of the nursery rhyme “Ten Little Indians” where the little Indians met their fate in nefarious ways.

Well, I knew I need not go further because without alternate jurors, a mistrial was called. The evidence was not deemed sufficient to retry the case although the “double jeopardy clause” did not apply in this case. The original witnesses were shaky at best and the evidence was circumstantial so it was decided not to retry the case.

I’ll bet you are wondering why, in my second paragraph, I admitted I felt some contrition. Do I seem like the type of person who would feel any sadness at their deaths?

I have to admit that I knew the murder victim. He had picked me out on a dating website and we began an affair (I later found out he was married, the skunk!) One night, after absolutely glorious hot and heavy sex, I stabbed him in the ear with a hatpin. After all, he deserved to die for his deceit. I could not let the innocent person, the defendant, suffer for my walk on the wild side, could I now?

Man outside my window

lives my outside life,

trapping me within

my fishnet boundaries.

The skeleton of his soul

stands in piles

of cigarette butts

crunching underfoot.

The man was I

and I was he -

osmosis through glass

as I shut the window,

leaving a borderline crack

to squeeze to other side

of life, prying eyes open

to see my exterior man,

drawing face to glass

to behold the inner workings

of his buried thoughts,

begging to be confined

within his outlines

to entwine

inside his body

of sweeping darkness.