claustrophobia

i have felt the terror of being trapped

the heavy thrum of the MRI machine, the restriction, the bile in the throat

the mind wild, thrashing to get out and get free, at any cost.

i feel it when i am lying in bed, trapped on planet earth, bound in time and space and mortality.

i become aware of my smallness, a blip on the lifeline of earth

i am a tiny and frail breath that will falter and fade with time.

i feel it when i sit next to the ocean and know i cannot escape this world

and if i could, i could not escape the breathless blanket of space, so empty and so wide.

i feel it when i see my cat, a sickness in her worn and fading body, i have felt this many times before

i know there is nothing i can do to comfort her or keep her safe,

she will succumb to the sickness and there is nothing i can do about it.

i sip my hot tea, dig my toes into the soil and endure another wave of claustrophobia

i choose to believe there is more than here and now

i choose to know i am held in the Hands that now hold the boy that left us, the cousin i never understood, and my cat.