Hunted

Do not make me feel afraid in my home, where I pay the bills with the earnings from my skills

Where I clean up the spills and cure the ills

Yet I still cannot prevent melt-downs

Despite my walking on eggshells, I set off landmines of drama from time to time

These very words have potential to cause damage, depending on whose eyes find them

My intolerance of conflict is impractical

The physiologic reaction that my body is under threat with every disagreement is not helpful anymore

I take my herbal sedatives and guide my body through relaxation yoga nidra style, yet the pounding in my chest won’t let me rest, even when I visualize it as a drumbeat of peace, rippling outward and keeping rhythm as I soften muscle away from bone, cell from cell and thought from thought

Still I feel hunted in my own home in my own bed in my own head

This is the time that if I had something stronger I’d take it for brief relief. I am curious to try the medications I prescribe for patients with ailments identical to my own.

Instead I write with a smile of gratitude for the fact that I don’t have a prescription because I’d miss out on the therapeutic bliss of this midnight poem if I did.