Tonight's Poet Corner: The Peace Chamber

The Peace Chamber
by Belinda Roddie

You've coughed so much each time
you've stepped out of the shower that
you're not quite sure why you started doing it
in the first place. You used to blame the
temperature change, that adrenaline-jolting
drop from Hawaiian mist to Bay Area
pseudo-tundra. Now there's so much air
lodged in your chest that it's like a latex balloon
with nowhere to go but out, that seemingly
necessary expulsion from the throat, rattling
your entire frame until the glassy spots
resembling stars start bouncing in the panes
of your blurry, waterlogged eyes.

You've never had respiratory issues, and
the worst you ever got to an asthma attack
was after running a mile in high school,
resisting the urge to vomit in the bathrooms
just nestled beside the dirt track, which had
done wonders to the soles of your shoes with
its bumps and divots, like pockmarks on old,
corrosive skin. You try your best not to cough
once you remove yourself from the soothing
spray, your hair clotted with the residue of
conditioner lingering on your smothered follicles.
Sometimes, you're successful. Sometimes.

Additionally, you've grown so accustomed to
the noise you created in your little tiled space,
where your face stares back at you in three glassy
directions, that the silence you endure feels
awkward at best, but like a boulder on your back
at worst. You wonder initially if  you miss the sound
of your own volcanic eruption, like you tried to purge
yourself of the demons residing in your tub through air
instead of ash. Or maybe you can't handle the lull
in the cacophony because every morning, you'd hear
your father hack and wheeze just down the hall
at five AM before he went to work, not because
he was cold, but because anxiety came to pick him
up each morning so he could make it to the office.