There was tension building my shoulders
Up to my ears
The muscles tying me together strained
The ligaments froze up
Things stretched wrong-ways,
Pulling against each other gently

I waited, listening to the thrumming noise
That was my heartbeat
Hummingbird-hummingbird-pulse-hummingbird
Thrum, thrum, thrum
Waiting for the crooning white noise

I was incredibly anxious
The thing that happens to me sometimes
I forget to mail a letter
I don't water the already-dead houseplant
I put my hair up unevenly
Those things
That make me freeze
The ones that make my blood flash cold and then hot
That raise the number of
Unreal picture-dancing-hallucinations
Twisting behind my eyes

Then the singer came in
And I realized how silly I had been
The terror-images hiding in my bones
Slipped away timidly, gyrating
In time
With the music