I must say a word about fear.
It is life’s only true opponent.
Only fear can defeat life.
It is a treacherous adversary.
With no decency, respect,
no law or convention;
it shows no mercy.
It goes for your weakest spot,
found with unerring ease.
It always begins in your mind.
One moment you are calm,
self-possessed,
happy.
Then fear, disguised as doubt,
slips into your mind.
Doubt meets disbelief
and disbelief tries to push it out.
But disbelief is poorly armed,
and doubt does away with it with little trouble.
You become anxious.
Reason comes to do battle for you.
You are reassured.
Reason is fully equipped.
To your amazement,
despite tactics and numerous victories,
reason is laid low.
You feel yourself weakening.
Your anxiety becomes dread.
Your body is aware something terribly wrong is going on.
Already your lungs have flown away like a bird!
Your ears go deaf,
Your muscles quiver,
and your knees shake as though they were dancing.
Your heart strains too hard,
and so does the rest of your body.
Every part of you falls apart.
Only your eyes work well.
They pay attention to fear.
Quickly, you make rash decisions.
You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust.
There, you’ve defeated yourself.
Fear, an impression, has triumphed over you.
The matter is difficult to put into words;
Real fear shakes your foundation.
It nestles in your memory.
It seeks to rot everything,
even the words with which to speak of it.
You must fight hard to express it,
to shine the light of words upon it.
If you don’t,
If your fear becomes a wordless darkness you avoid,
perhaps even forget,
You open yourself to further attacks of fear.
You never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.
December 2013, inspired by the book Life of Pi.