I grab at confidence,
my hands are slick with sweat
and so I fail,
identity eludes my grasp,
the ocean won't fit
in my pail.
Fear doesn't creep
on small cat's feet like fog,
it's more prone to attack
like a scourge or inquisition,
fear becomes
the spirit's rack.
Then my mind closes,
and my ears, to sound,
my eyes, to sight,
I know that old fear
once again has come
to turn day into night.
The battle has been fought before
and sometimes won,
but in the end
it always steals back
and this time, perhaps,
I should make fear my friend.
For what is friendship
but the deed of giving love and loyalty,
so every sorrow turns to good,
what else is love's priority?
But how can I embrace my pain
and understand that paradox,
Can I perceive those inner doors
and make a metaphor of locks?
Every doggy loves a bone,
I wish my instinct was as clear,
I'd live right in the here and now
and thumb my wet nose at next year.
I try to reason,
not to look at life through prisms,
for to me
the light is convoluted
so the more I look, the less I see.
It's necessary to concede,
impossible to separate
the intermingling of those four,
of joy and pain and love and hate.
I think I see that fear's about
protection and security,
could it be that I glimpse the dawn,
that at last, it occurs to me?
The only way to break the grip
of all fear and uncertainty
is knowing that to be secure,
I must trust insecurity.
And with this tangible relief,
my path will go where it will go,
no need to dread anxiety,
no need to fear what I don't know.
The past is past,
whatever comes is circular,
and at a glance
the only thing to which to cling
is unreality and chance.