The Sound of Anxiety

I 

I walked out and into

The thick darkness of penumbras

The night was black

And heavy as oil

My steps were muffled

By the inviolable echo

Of deafening silence

The tremulous whispers

Of the agitated wind

Cut off my throat

And lisped the words

Of fear

II

I woke up shaken

By my alarm’s blaring siren

As it broke the static silence

Of slumber

Like a knife

Ripping through a silken thread

Of dreams

I gasped as if I had surfaced

From a roaring ocean’s pit

And emerged victorious from the sea’s

Tornado of waves

III

Subtle shafts of morning light

Seeped through the cracks

Of my sealed glass windows

And I grew tense

By the screeching hum

Of the lit

Quiet space

The stuttering

Of my rusty heater’s crackle

Attempted to convey codes

Of anonymous significance

Through gentle taps

Like desperate supplications

Of burned

And withered  

Cries

IV

The train ride suffocated me

With a clutter of voices

Like an arrhythmic symphony

Of sputtered incoherence

My head, a grove

For restless termites

A cavity

For inarticulate multitudes

V

And your voice –

The lovely croon –   

Was suppressed and strangled

My attempts to heed

Your warnings

Distanced you from my reach

Your face –  deformed

Like jagged reflections

On distorted prisms

Parted its slanted lips

And gargled final words

Before drowning in the well