I Was Sober

There was reason
for his curiosity
Curled up in my chair
I fit the role
of a disturbed millipede
Meeting me in a small crowd
for only the second time
(not even acquaintances),
My posture during the panic attack
must have seemed peculiar
Nobody gave him an inkling
of what I was

He probably assumed
that I was on equal ground
with all the others
Assumed that I needed
a prosthetic chemical
to prop me up
out of reality
He questioned my sobriety
Asking me if I was on drugs
or just reefer
Drugs?!
The past three nights
I had evaded the mountains
of Seroquel and Pamelor
which were meant
to be scaled
The void of psychotropics in me
was most likely the perpetuator
of such high scale anxiety

Hunched over, rocking up and down
like looping autism
Shaking in the summer night
like peppered Parkinson's
Yanking on hair
(my means of achieving opiate calm)
It took me a few seconds
to respond
"Drugs?  No.
I don't do them."
And I felt a sense of shame
Having unveiled for him
everything about the
"natural" biological and neuro-chemical factors
which dictate me.

     -July 2003