Fear

strapped to the table and lovingly incised, all its
subtle forms spilling out: panic, confusion, nervousness
like a tapeworm curled in the stomach,
closet terror crouched low, looming
beneath the single bed, the horror one pays for
and the horror that comes free with living, paranoia’s hitched step
along the hallway, the constriction
when the end of that hallway is indisputably found,
also: surprise, trepidation, which
even sounds like an intentional fault to slow the momentum of the body
into the unhesitant unknown, avoidance
of whatever spills enough adrenaline to paralyze, phobias
clustered like countless spores of fungus
in the corners of what might
have been a mansion, revulsion and its immediate recoil, which is sometimes sufficient,
sometimes not,
the vicarious thrum of concern for yet another
youngish girl’s school photo on the news, worry more personal this time
like a finger-frayed shawl,
dread and its erratic beating on kneecaps to get
a reaction, hysteria like a thousand hands weaving the air,
simplicity--immediacy-- of distress,
how it calls out and plucks at loose buttons with moon eyes waxing in an underfed face,
and unease, linking its arm around one’s waist,
mentioning how everything eventually goes dark.

I am embarking on a project dealing with "fear"; it should last about 6 months and be comprised, ultimately, of about 50 poems. Not knowing where to go, I made one of those tree-shaped charts with all the different forms of fear, and this is what came of it. Concrit welcomed, nay, begged for.