On fear

I am not afraid to die, I think.

Or at least, I hope. There have been near misses – self-inflicted ones and misfortunate ones. Still, against that most existential of edges, I am yet to be tested, so this is vaunting speculation at best: that I should wince and smile and etherize without a fit, as would the last breath to leave me.

But I am afraid.

I am afraid of waves. I am afraid of bedbugs. I am afraid of long silences. I am afraid of text messages and blank pages and ringing phones.

I am afraid I’m going blind. I am afraid of getting bald. I’m afraid of growing old – not old age itself, just me, old. I am afraid of lost possibilities.         

I am afraid of taking a step forward or a step back. I am afraid of the possibilities lost to my own fear. I am afraid of the moment and losing the moment. I am afraid of paralysis and motion and decision and indecisions.

I am afraid to live. I am afraid that I live. I am afraid to live a verisimilitude. I am afraid to live as I ought to. I am afraid to conform and to comply. Yet I conform. Yet I comply. I am afraid to pause and enjoy the sunrise. I am afraid that I have been a liar. I am afraid that I have often told some else’s lies. I am afraid of lies. Yet I lie.

I am afraid of my own silhouette reflected in indigent eyes. I am afraid to look. I am afraid to look away. I am afraid for my part played in forging the locks and chains. I am afraid to be put in lock and chains. I am afraid of terror. I acquiesce to terror. I am afraid of the permission I have given in submission. I am afraid of my own silence.

I am afraid of loneliness, so I am afraid all the time. I am afraid that when I die, it will be in a room like this – small, empty, sparingly kept – with no one to hear my last words and record my regrets and turn off the music and the lights and water the plants and keep the cats fed. I am afraid that until death, I still have not gotten a cat.  

I am afraid I still won’t have gotten a plant when I die.