Subject

[dawnynomore]

When you wake up with your heart pounding. Sunlight tears its way into your eyes as you gulp air. A moment ago you were suffocating, but the sweat along your spine has chilled. It wasn't real.

Dimly registering the prickles of gooseflesh across your skin, you shiver. Though whether it is the early morning air or dream images which your barely conscious mind cannot quite make sense of, is of little consequence.

Actual panic doesn't survive well when its direct cause is proven evanescent.

The monster isn't real. It was just a nightmare.

What is one supposed to do for the terrors that haunt us while we wake?

When a lover wraps me in a warm embrace, breathes on my neck, and just for a moment, I am terrified.
What explanation for the sudden burst of speed and adrenaline as I run up the last few steps of a staircase: suddenly certain that whomever is behind me means to do me harm?
When my children pile on my shoulders and torso to instigate a tickle fight, but after a few moments I am suffocating and begging them to please get off me.

I got out. Its over. The trauma is over.

"It takes time to heal"

I. Am. Aware.