Fear

“What is your biggest fear?”

Her voice and question are as clear as every object in the hospital,

Concise, clean, and transparent.

The answer, however, anything but.

“I am afraid of many things,”

I want to say,

“I am afraid of the pain my father swore he offered to better me as a person,

And also the person into which I have been bettered.

I am afraid of cars leaving the middle of the night after another noisy fight,

And the words ‘he didn’t want us anymore’,

I am afraid of cars and trees since my mother said our family would be happier if we would all drive into one,

And I am even more afraid of the time I did,

Increasingly I fear that crash was something I wanted.

I am afraid of the man who hovered over me late at night even after I bid farewell

And afraid of memories with him that I still can’t bring myself to tell.

I’m afraid of all of the ones I scared away and afraid it will always stay that way because in the words of my dad, ‘you will pay someday’.

Most of all I am afraid I am not enough,

That the brimstone and fire I try to radiate in each moment,

Attempts to burn through my past and into the future,

Don’t burn bright enough to see

Allowing darkness to take over me.”

Instead I stare at the white wall in front of me as I fiddle with my wristband, looking through you as I remember the things that brought me here.

“I don’t know,” I say,

“The dark, I guess.”