As quickly as I grasp it, it slips away. The Fear is constantly undulating, serpentine, through the hills and meadows of my mind. Where it goes the grass grows purple, and the sky is clouded with a thickness that is hard to breathe. Two glistening teeth curve out below its lip; it is a smile I know. I turn my face away.
The Fear is a void with clasping, clawing arms-- the graceless movements of an insect gathering its prey. Hastening it to fill it, I try everything I can think of: food, stories, idle thoughts. Anything I can do to keep from seeings its faceless form, terrifying in its emptiness. I run from it because I always have, I run from it because I am paralyzed and have always been.
Clarity comes in those quiet moments when there is no sound jar against my ears, and in those moments I gather what courage I can to face the Fear. In those moments I feel whole; I do not feel the pull of the void, the ceaseless and thoughtless need to fill it.
Peace comes, and then I feel it rush over me, a tide of people and feelings and thoughts and colors. It is my world; it can only exist where nothing has existed before. The Fear cannot quench it, cannot kill it, cannot force it away. I am full. I can succeed. My dreams are inspired and my hands are magic.
The Fear will not conquer me.
