Fear

By Gabriela Senno

Fear wakes up sweating, simultaneously hot

and cold, too delirious to tell the difference.

He quietly gets up, dresses, and waits at the exit

of his modest home, looking forward, into a community

he once thought he knew, now unrecognizable.

Fear idles, works up the nerve to leave, & holds his

breath. Breath. Breathe is what they told him.

Fear, however, could not breathe, his chest a knot,

incapable of being unfastened by even the most decorated

of sailors. Where his back meets his neck, muscles tense,

the weight of his thoughts too overwhelming

to carry.

Fear hears his heart pounding between his ears,

worrying if this is a typical biological behavior.

Anxiety, his cousin, fell ill a week ago. Fear thought,

I only just saw her, beginning to speculate

if the sickness will eventually find

him too.

Fear, close to the hospital, is surrounded by sirens,

every three minutes another one seems to sing &

another one &

another one

& another

one.

Panic, his father, sits inside the siren.

Fear is exhausted of being alone, so he lurks

near passersby, clinging to the leftover dregs from previous

interactions. Stomach grumbling, hungry for connection,

Fear’s loneliness grows, becoming a void too big to fill,

permanently unsatisfied.

Fear, numb from repeated exposure to his own strife,

notices he is crying when he sees remnants from

tears, dropping to the ground below.

Fear, only making it to the end of his street, retreats.

Fear does not listen to the news anymore,

but even still,

Fear cannot sleep at night.