Flight

My heart feels like a caught bird desperately flapping its wings in a too-small cage, as if my rib cage has shrunk ten times smaller than its actual size. Each beat comes much too fast, and my heart wants to get out, out, out, out of this tiny space that has suddenly filled with too many people. Too many bodies are pressed against each other and I can see no clear exit path, and the sight of the lack of free space jackrabbits my lungs into frenzy until each breath drags shorter and faster than the last. I feel my mind shrinking, folding in on itself and retreating into some deep, shadowy mental corner in an attempt to feel safe. My body is still moving, lips still frozen in the mold of a friendly smile, voice and hands still packing pastries into cardboard boxes--albeit clumsily now, with my muscles moving in slightly jerky, robotic motions--because no one must know how viscerally I feel like I'm dying right now, not in this cheerful little French bakery full of twelve kinds of croissants and dainty porcelain plates shaped like flowers; no one can know, no one can see how ugly and weak my fear is, but it feels like each of the 30+ people crammed into this tiny space can see every nuance of it in my eyes. My body is screaming at my mind to run, that it is shutting down, that it is dying, but my mind can't hear it from where its hiding in its deep, dark little shelter. My body is begging me to run, but there's no room to move, there are flaky pastries to serve and credit cards to swipe, there are hungry and grumpy grandparents and hip, fit yogis to feed.
I hope those fucking croissants taste sweet.