LIST #1

Things I am afraid of: my train derailing, earthquakes, wasps and yellow-jackets. (When yellow-jackets hover by me as I read in a field I stand up to read, just in case I need to run away; my boyfriend says this is one of my "peccadilloes.") I am afraid of cancer. I am afraid of never seeing my father again. I am afraid when driving past trucks or walking late at night. Afraid of poisonous spiders under the covers (and necrosis of the flesh). That the horse will bite my hand when I feed it an apple, that a stray dog will attack me when I walk down a street alone. I am afraid of tsunamis (that moment when the sea draws itself back. . .). Afraid of being lost at sea, of drowning, of sharks. That a meteor will crash into the sea and send all the water up. I am afraid that people think I'm ugly when I walk past them. That I'm an awful poet. Afraid because even talented writers fail. Because no one cares about writers or artists, really. Because it's so easy to feel stupid. To be slothful. To forget to brush your teeth or miss a payment or make the wrong choice or say the wrong thing or hesitate. I am afraid of going blind or deaf. I am afraid to become any older than this. To become complacent, to live within the bubble of cynicism until I cannot see the beauty in things (I know too many people like this). Afraid of losing love (I never have), of mediocrity in love and goodbyes that are inevitable. I am afraid of nuclear war and loneliness and F-5 tornadoes (sometimes they're miles wide). When a plane creaks or makes a strange sound I grip my boyfriend's hand tight and look around at others' faces to see if they're alarmed, too (they never are). I am afraid to drive in the city, to take left turns during rush hour. I am afraid I will hit a deer in the country at night. Or hit a cat in the suburbs. I am afraid of paralysis, to break even one bone. I am afraid I will die tomorrow and never say the things I should have said to the people who needed to hear them. I am afraid that we really are the only sentient beings in the universe. What I think is interesting about fears and dreams is that many of us would list the same concepts but the images in our minds are all different and infinitely private: even if we wanted to describe them to someone we'd fail; there's just no way to let someone else in your head. I am afraid of that kind of aloneness, that my isolation will always feel palpable. That I don't even know who I am, really, even after twenty-five years of living in this body. And even more afraid that I've failed to really know and understand the people I love, what has made them who they are. I am afraid that I will remember it all wrong, that I will forget everything, that these days have no weight, no genuineness. That decomposing will still hurt, somehow.