what i put my mother through.

I.

This is an airplane.
It’s three a.m.
and the fasten seatbelt noise
is polite like a fire alarm
neatly placed on my eardrum;
I am screaming
like two-year-old tantrum.
I am 14.
This is an airplane.
I swear the walls are closing in
like a fist clenching neatly
around my body
thickly coated in perspiring and dry throat
pounding the floor
with the might of my feet
like it will time-travel me forward
through the hours
between now and baggage claim,
this is an airplane
this is an airplane
this is an

II.

80 passenger athletic education expense.
Post-cross-country return voyage
dark like the highway fading too fast,
being eaten by the wheels,
I am being eaten by the wheels,
watching the windows compress
stove-topping my breath
blood-boiling me alive like
my panic attack on the brink
breathe in
breathe out
breathe in
breathe

III.

like coming up for air,
ration is slowly
lest your lack of tolerance
drown you in oxygen,
but it’s hot in here.
The excuse for an air conditioner
mocking me for the stomach ache,
and anxiety.
This is an airplane.
Again.
Now, I am not afraid of the sky
or horizon,
in fact,
it’s the walls barred between us
that claustrophobia me
into hysteric chains
breathe in
breathe out
don’t let the head
tidal wave over you just yet,
this is an airplane
with wheels
are those clouds
or the highway being swallowed
because

IV.

These heatstroke manias
all seem to blur themselves
into one giant of an overreaction.
Dear Mom,
I’m sorry about the way back when
I didn’t mean to be so much
lack of control
but even now,
I sometimes see walls
as collapsing cement boxes
wrapping themselves around my consciousness,
waiting for me to choke.