A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

Just between us, I’m scared. I’m terrified, actually. 

I fear that I’ve started something, 

and must now see it to completion, whatever the cost. 

I fear that the cost is more than I can afford,

with my carefully constructed compartmentalised coping. 

It has been a delicate art form:

neatly packaging thoughts and emotions into reinforced cardboard boxes,

taping them shut,

sometimes labeling them in black permanent marker that smells so strongly of toluene, 

taking me back to Year 9 science classes,

and asking Mrs Gunning for stories from South Africa

just to avoid doing work – no, Brain, focus on this, now is not the time for one of your trips.

Stacking them, neatly at first,

like bricks building the walls around my heart,

the curated labyrinth most don’t even dare enter;

no one has time to risk the unknown terrors it may hold,

and even it doesn’t, no one wishes to be lost in there;

there is no map.

My own cage, personalised.

Comfortable, I say, but maybe I just mean familiar. 

A cage is still a cage. 

But now, the infrastructure is aging,

and the upkeep has not been conscientious – 

there was no time,

inundated with more and more feelings requiring packaging, taping, labeling, stacking – 

I could not keep up.  The piles are not as neat,

the boxes atop the wall teeter in the wind,

whether the spring breezes of friendship

or the gale force of stressors.

The older boxes grow mildew, are moth-eaten

at the corners. Their integrity 

is compromised. 

Some contents leak slowly,

ooze,

dampen and soften the surrounding cardboard. 

Some burst forth 

as though unable to understand

how anything ever held them in.

Some ignite and explode

into instant debris.

The aftermath will not be an easy clean.

I swallow, an uncomfortable gulp,

brought on by nerves,

but it is there, this globus sensation

at the base of my neck. Who

or what, is gripping me here?

The tightness spreads into my upper chest, 

like a water spill soaking through a piece of paper towel.

It becomes just that little bit harder to breathe.

Some reptilian centre in my brainstem

starts to panic in my subconscious.

Is this how I die?

But of course not. I know

This for what it is – a mere visceral reaction 

In this body I’ve spent years trying to ignore

along with the contents of the boxes,

which, by the way, reminds me, can we just package them back up, please?

You don’t know what’s in there.

Hell, these days even I don’t know what’s in there.

And I’m scared.

I’m scared that at some point,

I will lose control.

At the moment, the leaks are containable,

cleanable,

fixable.

Not pleasant perhaps, but they can be dealt with,

and then the PR team can go into damage control

and no one need know the magnitude of catastrophe avoided.

But I’m scared

that we are nearing a critical mass, as it were,

when the floodgates will open,

a point of no return,

and I will drown

under

the 

weight

of 

emotions

and feelings

and thoughts

and memories

and understandings.

I fear loss of function.

I fear full burnout.

I fear not knowing myself.

I fear failure. 

You say I can do this, 

But what if I can’t?

What if this is yet another thing at which I fail?