They Say Spiders, Snakes, and Storms

They say snakes
spiders
storms
When they talk of fear
I wish my fear was that simple
I wish when I closed my eyes
and tell myself I was being stupid
the fear would just go away
I wish I could call my mom
and tell her with a weepy voice
what this fear was
but that won’t do any good.

What I fear
I can forget from time to time
But it is always there
I can sprint
three hundred meters
I can run
until my legs feel like lead
I can take twists and turns
But when I stop
It will always be there with me
I can forget it for days at a time
The laugh of friends
A ball being dribbled
up and down a court
Music
loud enough to drown it out
All of these distractions
but when they end
it comes back
Because what I fear
I carry inside of me

I fear
my stress
My quick ability to quit
How dark the world seems
when things get hard
I am not the only one with this fear
I’m not that naive,
This fear is a part of life
Underneath all of the spiders and storms
there is something much darker
A fear that comes more for some
But that we all have
The fear that comes when we are alone
with nothing to entertain us
but our thoughts
We think
what we don’t want to think