Fear Of Fearing myself....

Why is it fear that is considered a threat
I fear that I fear myself
That I regret
What is fear a curse, or a gift
My mind's stuck in Neutral
And that's something I can't shift
The old,hard of hearing and yet I don't care
What I hate the most is it's me that I fear
I fear that I began, middled, and ended
That I fear of fearing myself
which no one comprehended
I hate that you fear all the small things in life
Like hating your parents, and losing a life
But what I fear most is the last book on the shelf
My biggest fear, is of fearing myself
I fear of fearing myself
Now asleep in clouds it was me on the shelf
I no longer have a fear of fearing myself

-Edgar Allan Poe Jr.

Dear Reader

Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing
in the doorway of these words.

Pope welcomes you into the glow of his study,
takes down a leather-bound Ovid to show you.
Tennyson lifts the latch to a moated garden,
and with Yeats you lean against a broken pear tree,
the day hooded by low clouds.

But now you are here with me,
composed in the open field of this page,
no room or manicured garden to enclose us,
no Zeitgeist marching in the background,
no heavy ethos thrown over us like a cloak.

Instead, our meeting is so brief and accidental,
unnoticed by the monocled eye of History,
you could be the man I held the door for
this morning at the bank or post office
or the one who wrapped my speckled fish.
You could be someone I passed on the street
or the face behind the wheel of an oncoming car.

The sunlight flashes off your windshield,
and when I look up into the small, posted mirror,
I watch you diminish—my echo, my twin—
and vanish around a curve in this whip
of a road we can't help traveling together.

-Billy Collins "The Art of Drowning"

With love:

I never want to become
another hole in your heart
another memory to be forgotten
another regret on your lips
another burnt-out infatuation
another ignored pain in your past.

Sincerely -

P.S. Is it possible to become the one who
brings you happiness
helps you progress
blesses your life
makes you smile always.