I try to keep anxiety out of my heart,
which is, after all,
both the beginning and ending,
but anxieties must go somewhere.
I can feel them burning
my stomach as they pass
en route to the spine
where, ossified,
they become structural, not anxieties
but cornerstones of the skeletal foundation.
If I stop moving,
I feel myself begin to melt or,
more accurately, crumble.

BM, you said that panic is in many cases a product of our environment. What about when it isn't?