"it"

Until my thirties, I wondered when "it" would happen
and I lived in almost constant terror of "it".
The fear ruled everything.
"Don't go outside! the pollen will bring "it" on"
"Don't run to hard, you know 'it' is waiting"

My breath would catch
and the rattling sound in my lungs
taunted me mercilessly
with the specter of "it".

"It". The Last Attack,
The Big One.
Death. By asphyxiation.
The picture was clear, and constant.
Gasping, the breath would not come,
I would watch as the skin under my fingernails
turns from pink to dusky blue
and all would fade
as my brain starved for oxygen
and my system shut down.

In my thirties I had come to terms with it
thinking maybe what I had always been certain of,
could be avoided.
Maybe I would die,
and, for the first time, I thought,
maybe I wouldn't.

Then I had a heart attack, and the old terror is back.
A single twinge of pain in the chest,
and I am staring, again, at "it"
and the only thing I can think to tell myself
is that this "it" is much quicker than the old "it".
Small consolation.