Jungian Asthma Attack (A poem)

Last night I had a dream and in my dream I was
running away from something, like you do, some unknown and unknowable Big Bad,
except I did know, really, it's just that I couldn't tell myself or everything would end

in my dream, I ran and ran, and I ran into an empty and broken building
a real wreck, broken glass everywhere, pigeon dung on the metal struts, smelling like cold and rust
some kind of industrial building, maybe, but it was dark
God, how dark it was -
like the inkpot of hell, the output of some demon squid
and I ran and ran and I could see nothing at all

I knew where I was going though, somewhere I could hide
make myself small and inconsequential, so that thing that was chasing me would be fooled
and go away, snorting
while I curled into the shape of a slater bug and held myself tight side-to-side

I was climbing a ladder in the dark, it was missing rungs and it creaked and I
panicked, the sour metallic taste in my mouth as I keened silently
it's gonna hear it's gonna hear it's gonna hear me -

Then, suddenly, like an otter breaking water, I was up above
I was in a dusty, run-down but light-filled apartment
up above the world so high like a tea-tray in the sky
there was a bed piled high with rough blankets, a toilet that looked like it flushed maybe
a gas-ring, a heavy kettle, a moth-eaten rug on the floor

In my dream I fell on my knees and sobbed into the dirt and the dust
and my tears made dark tracks in the cobwebs on the floor

Then, suddenly, I knew I had to hide again
and the light was going, I was gasping, I was choking, and I -

You were wheezing hard, he said, as he woke me and handed me my puffer
Like you couldn't breathe well. You have to remember to take it...

Yes, I said, inhaling. Oh yes.

- Kathy, 8/6/15