When the Heart Races the Clock Poem, by Friendship, at My poetic side

When the Heart Races the Clock

The world shrinks to a single hallway—

white walls breathing in rhythm with my chest,

each inhale a gasp of winter air,

each exhale a sigh that thins the glass of my throat.

A sudden tide surges from the hollow of my ribs,

white‑knuckled waves crashing against the ribscage,

and my thoughts scatter like startled birds

against a sky that has forgotten how to be blue.

My hands tremble, a nervous violin,

plucking the tight‑rope of nerves that hum

with a frequency only the nervous system can hear:

a frantic Morse code—dot, dash, panic—

signaling an emergency that no one else can see.

The clock on the wall ticks a frantic metronome,

its ticking a drumbeat in a war I never enlisted,

while the walls close in, inches shrinking

to the size of a postage stamp stamped with “Urgent.”

I am both the storm and the ship,

the lightning that splits the night and the hull that shivers,

my heartbeat a drum that threatens to break

the ribcage's fragile glass.

Every breath feels like a borrowed moment,

each one a fragile bargain with the air.

I try to name the sensation—

“panic,” a word too calm for the hurricane inside,

a polite handshake with a raging beast.

Yet, in the middle of the gale, a whisper

pierces the roar: hold.

I anchor myself to a single word,

to the feel of the floor beneath my shoes,

to the faint, metallic taste of my own tongue,

to the rhythm of a distant, steady breath.

And slowly, the tide recedes, pulling

its frothy fingers from my throat,

the walls expand, the hallway widens,

the clock resumes its ordinary tick,

the storm becomes just a memory

of clouds that have already passed.

In the afterglow, I sit—still shaking,

still breathing, still alive,

a fragile ship moored in quiet harbor,

waiting, patient, for the next tide to rise.