I am not scared of the dark anymore.
I no longer have the need to check every closet and corner of our home before I feel safe and certain that no one else is here.
Sometimes I even leave and don't bother to lock the door behind me.
And maybe I'm becoming careless. Or maybe my fears have simply shapeshifted into nameless beings; feelings rather than things.
I am afraid of losing you. I am no longer afraid of the dark, but now when the phone rings, before I even have time to think, I am worrying that it is the call. The call saying that something terrible has happened to you. The apologies. Strangers saying your name and me falling to my knees.
I am no longer compulsive about investigating the possibility of an intruder in our home, rather now I am compulsive about investigating all the possibilities in which you never make it back home to me. The thoughts fall through the cracks in my mind like quicksand and I am left standing with a blank look in my eyes. I am obsessive over every detail, I am consumed with every second of time we have left together, it's all I can think about.
And I no longer lock our front door. Maybe I am careless, or maybe I am leaving it open for the possibility that at any given moment, you might come walking through it, as nonchalantly as businessmen do at 5pm on a Tuesday. Regular, normal, routine.