On Fear – A Collaboration, Pt. 1

The piece below is part one in a collaboration between myself and the very gifted poet Thought for Change, of the blog The Rendezvous Club. This piece was written over a period of time through various communications revolving around a Q/A about fear, love, and marriage.

The text on the left was written by Though for Change. The text on the right was written by me.

It is said
That fortune favors
Those who help themselves
What foolishness it is
To listen only
To what “is said”
Without speaking
For what is
Was once not so
And each day brings with it
Iterations and
Perspectives unearthed
Valid only if taken into account

What I fear
Is not so much
That I will not be heard
But that I will fail
To speak
That I will allow
Opportunity
To fade with me
Rather than to seize upon
All that I have been given
And in doing so
Drive it forward
That others may find it
And draw from it as well

I fear not fear
Nor death nothing near
The darkness at noonday
Or the light inside the cave
Fails to instill fear in me
The dusky shadows or the
Blood filled honest embraces
I know them not fear them
But I fear, oh I fear
For we humans
Can’t live without them
I fear love
I fear care
I fear every step that come near
I fear fear
I fear you
And I fear myself the most.

What beasts are we
To have conquered all that we see
In the pale light of a new dawn;
Or is it just patterns against the wall?
We are not afraid;
For what shadows move these days
Save those cast our own unfamiliar appetites
That we do not already own?

But we tremble nonetheless, yes, we shudder with fright
At the ever-present awareness
That we can never stop.

We love fear.
We care not.
We step ever closer.

I have known fear,
I have known love,
And I fear the absence thereof more than anything.