fears.

I'm afraid of the way it hits me sometimes, the strength in my ache for people.

I'm afraid of imperfection, I'm afraid of getting older, I'm afraid of not seizing the day enough. How do people just shed their pasts, like skins? Free themselves of inhibition?

I'm afraid that my concept of love is wrong and beyond repair. That it has to do with power and that it has to do with me. Not with tenderness, not with the things I supposedly cherish.

I'm afraid that I've made mistakes that can't be forgiven, I'm afraid I've tried to make myself over one too many times.

What if I lost my spark?
What if I never had one?

I listen to the right music and all these things pour at me, images, dialogue, the feeling that I'm missing a limb, or a few. It's not loneliness, really, because I don't crave company, I'm fine being alone.

It's fear. Fear of misplacing parts of my life, forgetting them, like locking your keys in the house. This fear is only momentary, but it's always hovering. And when it hits, it's torrential. A tidal wave.

Carpe diem, but who knows what that means?


~RS
January, 2005
Used With Permission