I’ve just put my Christmas decorations up (goth aesthetic black and purple baubles hanging on the walls, no tree), so I thought I’d share a Christmassy poem today. Tis the season for having panic attacks in pub smoking areas! I still think about the man in this poem, wonder if he’s still alive (he was elderly, had a walking stick and a hacking cough, reminded me of my father)… If I remember rightly, this happened on Christmas Eve 2015 and I can’t tell you how often I think “If I can talk, I can breathe.” Originally published in BANSHEE (Issue #16, autumn/winter), with love and thanks to Jessica Traynor and the team ♥
At first it sounded gross
-ly unhelpful you were hyper
-ventilating outside The Railway
Bell upon another jager
-bombed Christmas Eve
hot tears matting your faux
fur coat your little handbag god
knows where eyeliner stream
-ing fake eyelashes peeling lip
-stick surely smudged to fuck by
now plum staining your chattering
teeth shaking crying dying you were
a right mess & you were saying
Icant[SOB]breatheIcant[GULP]bre
atheIcantfucking[CHOKE]Icant
breathe & the barmaid was rubbing
your back with one hand & smoking
a cig with the other & your pals desperate
-ly trying to source a diazepam & run
-ning to the loo for a roll of tissue
& then of course a random man
appeared in the fog in a tweed suit
swirling brandy saying astutely
If you can talk, you can breathe
& you wanted so much to knee
him in the testes & your friend
said Piss right off to him & to you
said He’s actually right you know, hun
but quietly so as not to let him win
though in actuality his unwarranted
observation that advice tossed
carelessly into midwinter
that night mansplaining
breathing to you was actually
a revelation of the best kind
though you didn’t know it
at the time but all these years
later you remember him
his pompous voice & you
remember your voice
every time the panic
surges in you you think
if I can talk I can breathe
& this is why you now talk all the way through every single anxiety attack
ramblingon withstupidchat sayinginanethings nonsensicalutterings
evenifyou’realone whenit’shappening youjustkeepbangingontalking
talkingtalking whileyourbody&brain trytheirhardest tomurderoneanother
& if you ever saw that man again, you’d say, Thank you.
HLR 