fear, fear, and then none

on being so scared you have no choice but to grow out of it

There’s no way for me to know how this story began. I was scared, I can say that much without all the breath-holding, though I don’t know which one of us was the perpetrator and who sustained more bullet injuries. I took my time to stay away, but you took yours to punish me: you were a vicious ruler, requests still floating through my marrow even as I walked out of the door. You decapitated on demand and spared no one in your orbit who’d done you wrong. I wasn’t sure I’d done you wrong, but I didn’t do shit right either —never was the typecast— so it was only in fair assessment you’d have no mercy left on me. Because, I remember now, I was crucified once and you stood in the corner, hood over head, and watched silently. So what, I never read terms and conditions or held your hand, big deal, boring. A blockade of deep breaths over contingencies that followed down guilt’s airways weren’t worth it. Is it better to be brave or wise? Or followed by a marching band with an agenda? You were a thunder warning I’d hate to see on TV, chords of an omen. What’s that? They’d say. Oh, I see. A girl who couldn’t muster up the courage. She’s hiding in her room again —hand over mouth, words passed around— That’s so embarrassing. Weak!

It always fascinated me that Greek mythology has two Gods of fear: Deimos, representing the dread and panic preceding a battle, and Phobos, his brother, personifying the fear and panic of the battle. Where does one end and the other begin? I never felt that division, all the trembling generously lasting a century. If the brothers were to see my terrors they’d resign the same day, stating “above our pay grade” as reasoning. Well, did they want me to own up to my fearing or face it? There’s a big difference. You insisted on creeping up my spine on your tippy toes like a well-taught ill-behaved acrobat: stretching my hunched back nicely until it made a tin cry sound then proceeded to rip into uneven halves in exactly two intermissions time, a fine-tuned guitar string that won’t make it through the song but is sure-wired to make you weep to the melody.

You lived in a well-known cottage with a dashing canal view where the dukes and the pedigreed went for salvation or tax fraud, and the location was popular, so I would often see you on postcards at the gift shop. I dropped the glitter snow globe once and watched the checkered floor tiles turn to a disco ball, shattered fragments of light dancing off the shadows and cutting off at the end of dreaming. Too bad I didn’t have my tap shoes on. They made me pay for the figurine and I hated picking up the glass shards with my bare fingers half as much as I hated realizing that my fear was an expensive hobby. You owned not me but my possessions, the trembling of my past and aspirations, my luck and journal margins, the gospel voices in my hollow head. Apparently, when I was with you, I was not a nice person. Apparently, I’ve kissed mouths I don’t remember kissing. Apparently, I’ve said some horrible, gruesome things, put people on their knees until they scraped the rutted pavement then convinced them they had tetanus. I say ‘apparently’ because I don’t remember — any event is a forgettable timewaste when you wouldn’t look me in the eye.

And that’s how we went on. Rather, I did. Door slams turned aircraft cabins. Politics over the beer pong tables. Silky smooth bra unhooked to the sound of my courage, for the first time and then again. All later than I’d hoped for, which was kind of your fault, too. Distraction goes a tiny long way. There was more of me to reckon now, and that’s how I felt myself growing; in parallel to the shrinking of the doubts I’d carried through the litmus tests and years. I told myself I’d see you when I’m ready… probably? I’m sure I did. When I grow up, I will not be afraid. There will be more of me, so no motion sickness, no crosswinds to prohibit takeoff and landing. When I’m strong enough and successful enough to withstand your waterboarding practices, when I’ve been to enough beaches, when I’ve let the sunshine of at least seven summers toast my stretched and sagging skin from all sides, I’d come, I’d come, I’d come. I’d confront. I’d show my knuckles and all the great things that I’ve been, too. If one can think of themselves as a convict of fear with no parole, dreams stacked in the unforeseeable future folder, then he can plan an escape. Hand to throat, I was committed to indifference for all the ways you’d terrified the living shit out of me. We hold the worst grudges against the ones who hold us the tightest, the longest—it’s only natural, or so I heard. At times, thinking back, I even felt you’d relied on me, like you couldn’t breathe without me spelling 3-2-1 for you on the chalkboard. It gets exhausting being so responsible, wasn’t there anyone else you could call for breathing exercises? I should’ve been free to run through the fields and feel dandelions on the sides of my ankles, but all I had was You You You and concerns and my fear. Perpetual April Fools with a disgraceful anecdote policy. Primed for picking brains and avoiding tough conversations, it was a road of underwhelm — you’d already shown me the toughest things in the world. I was ready for anything except you.