Rude Awakening

Asthma is a simple seven-letter word which seems almost impossible to define. I looked it up on ten different sites and they all varied on its source, its diagnosis, its symptoms, and its meaning: Is it all physical, or is it partially psychosomatic? Does the fear of the attack make the attack worse? Does it really feel like drowning? Is there pain? Yes.

A recent treatment left my lungs irritated and me coughing more than usual. During that treatment I experienced an asthma attack. For me, the worst times were waking up at night when an attack was already underway. It is truly a living a nightmare. My poem tonight attempts to describe one of many such nightmares from my asthma days. Dark and shocking, I believe it introduces the shock of waking in the dark, unable to breathe. Why it surfaced now, is anyone's guess, perhaps merely an echo of a warning in the dark...

Mick



Rude Awakening

Footfalls falling faster, right behind me,
I race on piercing the night with my fear.
Pivot right, as heel digs deeply, madly
Twisting and slapping as dark limbs draw near.
Airborne, a ravine opens at my feet,
My arms and legs propeller through the air,
Till thrashing body and forest floor meet.
Hands and feet grasp for purchase with despair,
And scrabbling upward, clawing root and stone,
With muscles screaming, back arched, and in pain,
I demand more from mortal blood and bone --
I leap the rim and blindly run again.
Into an alder thicket, dense I breach --
To hang suspended, air just out of reach.

Mick McKellar
March 2011