“I want to be brave,
like you,” women tell me
when I say, I’m afraid.
Fear tucks slender fingers
into the fold of my arm,
smiles while I gesture
with wide eyes.
“You have such courage,”
I’m told. Fear rests its head
on my shoulder.
I grew up watching
women
on couches,
around tables,
on TV,
sipping water from coffee mugs,
saying, “I’m no longer afraid.”
I sat on my own couch,
one leg sliding off the other,
and listened, as they said,
“I’ve let go of my fear.”
I pulled my chair up
to the open edge of their tables,
completed the semi-circles
they welcomed me into,
and watched, wondered, as
they promised more when they returned,
where does fear go?
And what does it do,
when it’s been lost?
Does it root to the spot
where you shook it off,
scan the faces of strangers,
trying to remember
what color you were wearing?
Do its eyes well up
when it can’t find you?
And what is fear? Where does it live?
What does it eat? How do we catch it
in the first place?
“All people are afraid
of something,” Oprah told me,
Yes, Oprah, I know:
spiders, their parents,
heights, their children,
needles, their insides.
I want to meet my fear,
face to horrifying face
under bright TV lights.
No more glimpsing
its enormity in the shadows,
Oprah! I want to see if it will
loom over me, peer down to
recognize its reflection
in my terrified face. Or maybe
it will be some scrawny thing,
squinting meanly at the audience
before slinking to hide behind my leg,
while the camera cuts from frightened
eye to frightened eye.
But I know fear can’t be
nailed down. I can’t corner it
or pin it, drag it under the
interrogation light.
Even when I lure it out
and it coils slow, determined knots
around my lungs,
just when I think I can grab it,
take it by surprise,
it drops,
plays dead, disappears.
And I’m left, stuttering
heart, throat in a fist,
and the strange feeling of loss
as I draw new, cold breaths,
of absence, as I fill with air,
like I might miss
the closeness.
Those women gathered in fake
living rooms, or imaginary kitchens,
smiled around every word,
with faces strategically painted
in muted shades of serious,
they said, “I don’t miss my fear.”
And I wondered,
while they drank their pretend coffee,
after fear is gone,
what does it leave behind?
like you,” women tell me
when I say, I’m afraid.
Fear tucks slender fingers
into the fold of my arm,
smiles while I gesture
with wide eyes.
“You have such courage,”
I’m told. Fear rests its head
on my shoulder.
I grew up watching
women
on couches,
around tables,
on TV,
sipping water from coffee mugs,
saying, “I’m no longer afraid.”
I sat on my own couch,
one leg sliding off the other,
and listened, as they said,
“I’ve let go of my fear.”
I pulled my chair up
to the open edge of their tables,
completed the semi-circles
they welcomed me into,
and watched, wondered, as
they promised more when they returned,
where does fear go?
And what does it do,
when it’s been lost?
Does it root to the spot
where you shook it off,
scan the faces of strangers,
trying to remember
what color you were wearing?
Do its eyes well up
when it can’t find you?
And what is fear? Where does it live?
What does it eat? How do we catch it
in the first place?
“All people are afraid
of something,” Oprah told me,
Yes, Oprah, I know:
spiders, their parents,
heights, their children,
needles, their insides.
I want to meet my fear,
face to horrifying face
under bright TV lights.
No more glimpsing
its enormity in the shadows,
Oprah! I want to see if it will
loom over me, peer down to
recognize its reflection
in my terrified face. Or maybe
it will be some scrawny thing,
squinting meanly at the audience
before slinking to hide behind my leg,
while the camera cuts from frightened
eye to frightened eye.
But I know fear can’t be
nailed down. I can’t corner it
or pin it, drag it under the
interrogation light.
Even when I lure it out
and it coils slow, determined knots
around my lungs,
just when I think I can grab it,
take it by surprise,
it drops,
plays dead, disappears.
And I’m left, stuttering
heart, throat in a fist,
and the strange feeling of loss
as I draw new, cold breaths,
of absence, as I fill with air,
like I might miss
the closeness.
Those women gathered in fake
living rooms, or imaginary kitchens,
smiled around every word,
with faces strategically painted
in muted shades of serious,
they said, “I don’t miss my fear.”
And I wondered,
while they drank their pretend coffee,
after fear is gone,
what does it leave behind?