Conversations Among the Ruins

Maybe I should write on
fear because I'm on one
or two or sixty hundred

eleven with fear such as
how I am afraid to get
a massage - I couldn't

tell you why but I
can think of a million
reasons to avoid

even doing that at all.
I fear success

because I don't know
why or how to
control it.

I fear that the road
less traveled is
endless subjective

to myself. I fear I
wil not go back to
where I am from

when I die, and that
I will be stuck here.

I fear being fat.
I fear my hair thinning.
I fear going out to paint

a canvas because all
it will do is tell me
how much I want a
cigarette.

I fear my boyfriend
dropping dead - at an
In & Out burger, in Bullhead City,
Arizona,

because I walk out of the
bathroom, and he is gone
but his truck is not so that

clearly
is the explaination
my head
first falls
to.

I fear loss, cavities,
paper cuts. I fear getting
a disease that is terminal.

That I live through anyway
and pay for with a
hospital finance plan
for the rest

of my life. I fear
driving
in weather that isn't
clear sun.

I fear runs in my nylons
at work when I don't have
a spare

pair.

I fear having to stab
a person to death
if they follow me

long enough through
the parking garage
to make me believe
that I should defend
myself.

I worry
I will be
forgotten.

I fear staying.
I fear leaving.
I fear that drinking

starbucks every day
for the past decade
has ruined

my teeth.

I fear I will never see
the pyramids or my
spirit.

I fear sticking
my best stickers
to something

that I will lose or
that will lose
me.

I fear losing my
garage card, debit card,
passport. I fear

credit card payments
at my job.

I fear my mother never
knowing that I didn't
leave

because of
her.

I fear how fucking
fantastic
a sapphire gibson up
sounds and I fear

the tape I have
that plays out
what happens to my life

when I solve my feelings
with gin.

I fear all politicians based
upon how cartoon like
their features are. The more

comic they look, the more
dangerous.

I fear zombies, zombie shows,
zombie movies, and my
zombie self. Which is the version
of who I am

without a spirit.

I fear that my dog
will grow up to hate me,
get hit by a car,

eat something
and drop dead
also.

I fear change and
eating breakfast
every day.

I fear that nobody
will ever know me
and that

my story
won't matter.

I fear the size of my
hips and how gross
the blisters on my feet
are.

I fear that I will
never again be as
beautiful as I never

realized until now
that I was
in the past. I fear
I am fading, and that

she was right. I am so
good at fearing that I

will never accomplish
anything, that it makes
it easier

to control what I will not
ever accomplish, and whine
about it then to step

again, as always,
into the clear bright
void of "I have no
the fuck

idea."

All that fear - like a
ten tier wedding cake
that I almost knocked

over with a box of
lettuce at work
the other night.

Splat.

What is alarming,
is that I do not fear
the day

that the sky will rain
fire.

In the deep middle
of nowhere yesterday,
with my eyes narrowed

I pointed to a dropping
chem trail in the bright
sky.

"Do you see that?"

Witch like, I point.

"I am not afraid
of the day

that the sky
will be full of fire
like that. And I

am not afraid
of the day that every
plant starts to

die right before
the shifts. It's a
crooked grin

that says
"It will not be like
those oil spills, where it
is printed, reported, and
forgotten. It will be

like your zombie shows,
where everything
is dead around us.

It is the required
order that I know
I chose at birth

to live through."

He knows
how I talk

when we're hundreds
of miles into the
mountains.

Where reality is
abrasive and waring
thin and it is all

as clear as each
crystal that keeps

me.