Your greatest fear is of someone yelling
Fire! in a crowded theater, of the cries of children,
the way popcorn would be dropped, scattered.
Perhaps—if there were a fire, that is—
your body would lock into place,
like ceramic, like a doll,
and you would be able to do nothing except sit there,
heart pounding, blood flowing; perhaps you would press two
fingers to your veins, let the sound of your
adrenaline overpower the way smoke that
doesn’t exist floats through the air, into your lungs,
suffocating you.
Maybe if you try hard enough,
there will be a Fire! in a crowded theater. Maybe, sickeningly,
you want to watch the way mothers would
throw their children over their shoulders, race to an exit.
Maybe you’d rush to an exit, too. However, there’s a chance that
you’ve just normalized death, that you’re afraid of
fear itself, the crackling of flames,
the smell of burning plastic, the color
red,