Hydroxyzine

Hydroxyzine

The quiet negotiator between my thoughts

Slipping into the conference room of my mind

Where every fear sits with its arms crossed

It doesn’t silence them 

it dims the overhead lights

Asks the loudest ones to speak slower

As if clarity were a form of mercy

I feel it rearranging the furniture

In the back of my skull

Moving the panic chair two inches left

Tilting the mirror so I stop catching

My own reflection at the wrong angle

There’s a moment 

Right after it dissolves 

When my mind becomes a hallway

Lined with doors I’ve locked for years

And each one rattles softly

Not to escape

But to remind me they’re still there

Hydroxyzine

You don’t cure the storm

You just convince the thunder

To talk about its childhood

You slow the spinning gears

Let me watch the machinery

Without getting caught in it

Let me name the shadows

Without becoming one

And in that strange

Suspended quiet

I realize the truth I keep forgetting

My mind is not my enemy

Just a frightened animal

That finally stops pacing

When the world grows gentle