When My Heart is Beating Out of My Chest

When My Heart is Beating Out of My Chest

by Laila S.H.

Email: Whylaila@gmail.com Instagram: @lailasokera

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

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I become my own physician.

Raise my right palm and

hone my fingernails

make them razor sharp

connect five digits to make a blade

fill my quaking stomach with air and

brace.

I slice through soft flesh and tissue

I am unsteady as I feel my skin split

It tingles and aches

I bear the familiar giddy anguish of

holding my nervous, downtrodden heart

and it is agonizing.

I shush and caress her in an attempt to soothe.

she is bustling—

agitated and aggrieved.

“What are you doing?”

I am treating you of this affliction, I say.

“I am treating us of the affliction!

I am readying the arms!”

I tell her there is no threat.

“What do you know of threats?

Of bloody communication?

What do you know of impulse?

This fear is warranted!

I will save us!”

I tell my dear heart that we are sick.

We taste panic in the vapor that hangs in the air.

Our eyes make missiles out of shooting stars.

We hear crashing and pummeling in the midst of a symphony.

We feel vexation in love, and we are shocked by a pleasant, inviting touch.

All at once, she remembers.

“Ah.” Heart whispers. “I see.”

The room surrounding us artfully sustains the sounds of her diminuendo.

We sway together to the rhythm she releases

as the distance between her beats grows larger.

Settled, she speaks.

“You are a true healer.

Just as we share in this sickness,

We share in my elasticity.

We share in your courage.

We share in our resilience.

One day we will unlearn this.

We will shed our worrisome affliction,

Like a peeling rind.”

I tell her she is right.

I place my heart back inside my chest and

release the breath that I have been holding

for all of this time.