#59 - The Fear is Back

I thought I had outrun it,

Outgunned it,

Shunned it,

Until it came back.

Not violently.

Not loudly.

Silently slid into my DMs,

Like a creep,

And in some ways no less disturbingly.

Anyway, it is here now.

And the conversation begins again.

Once more, once again,

Again and again.

Now I seem to be getting close,

To grasping what they meant.

When they said to imagine Sisyphus happy

With his eternal nightmare.

Where does it go from here?

That tiny distinctive voice,

That says, "Don't mess up"

"Actually things will mess up anyway,

At least don't speed it up"

Stay low,

Say no,

Say sorry,

Say I don't know.

Avoid getting out there,

When it's hardly peaceful even in here.

Out there is wilderness,

Why do you even want to go out there?

Out there into the field beyond right and wrong,

Where the action is out on the ground,

The stuff dreams are made of.

That's not for you, is it?

There do seem to be some limits.

That's somebody else's.

Well, you could be somebody else.

God knows sometimes you wish you were.

And god knows sometimes you have tried.

But you're not, are you?

You're you, aren't you?

And you're all you have.

Others are somebody else.

Between you and the others,

There are boundaries,

There are lines,

There are differences,

Some insides and outsides,

Some walls, some fences.

Maybe there are a few doors.

But questions stand gatekeepers.

And answers are fickle.

They sometimes lie, they fail, and sometimes they just change.

Without warning,

Without so much as a how-do-you-do,

Or a goodbye.

And all that are left are the questions.

Questions who once were your friends.

Now strangers.

Just like the others.

Somebody else's questions today.

Forgotten friends are the worst.

Actually, worse still are the ones you can't forget.

Anyway, I digress.

The fear is back.

And that's that.