Unafraid

Oh, hello

I don’t think we’ve met

Hand outstretched, steel in my grip

“I am Unafraid.”

Yes, indeed that is my name

Faced those demons, was once a slave

Now I’ve mastered Fear, my dear

So you will call me

Unafraid

Empowerment fills my chest

I stand with hands on She-ra hips

I will meet your gaze directly

Words ready at my lips

I’ll say what must be said

I’ll fight until the death

For the Truth that is alive in me

is worth my final breath

Why, what New Dark Thing is this?

Some new lesson, some old trick?

Go ahead and try me, friend —

I got a giant fucking dick

When you’ve been to hell and back again

When hell’s been in your bed

The slave becomes the master

When she takes the master’s head

And I’ve got his on a stick

There’s a new rule in town now

This Queen don’t take your shit

I’ve battled All The Vilest Things

And learned to never quit

The throne is mine til dying day

So let me introduce you, hey?

‘Cause I don’t think we’ve met

I am

Unafraid.

(written in 2018)

The Boot

One intentional STOMP

A spurred boot slamming onto an iced-over lake

Sadness breaks through me

the cracks begin slowly

reaching their jagged, frozen fingers through my skin

they quicken

Frigid waters rising

I hear a whisper somewhere

Don’t fall in

Don’t fall in

Those waters aren’t meant for swimming

30 seconds til hypothermia sets in

But then, a different voice speaks:

There is no danger here

I reassure The Whisperer

I am the lake.

And The Thing breaking through me

Is only

Letting Life in

Raw

I am deathly afraid you will strike me down

for opening my mouth

I sit frozen, shaking

an inner-earth-quaking

What if you spear my careful words

crafted from my great need for acceptance

I admit it!

I have crossed the bridge

and put myself Out There

Will I be crucified

Or stoned alive

Each step has led me here and I feel desperate

to take each step back now

What if I have doomed myself

Ruined everything again

Wanted or Needed too much

What if they tell me just to shut the fuck up

And Quit being so stupid

And We can see through your frantic attempts

You silly, useless fool

I cry out

I am so afraid

I am so eager to take-back

But I let it sit

Out There

With all of them

my throat choked from the waiting

Silent judgements killed me once

But I have to Stay

I have to hold strong and steady

I have to brave total annihilation

and trust that the world I knew once

has changed

And the terror just sits in the air

and hangs

 

Satisfied

daenerys

I’m not angry anymore

You run like mad from your own feelings

Wild, crazed, lost

And then say that I am Those Things

Ha.

You are a good man — somewhere –

But you are afraid

I cry for you who lives under the burden of this society

That says men don’t

The mask you wear is hardening

Be careful, boy

Sometimes masks get cemented into place

Undifferentiated

I am no longer offended

Or disappointed

Or think there must be something wrong with me

The haze has lifted

I’ve done the work

I see clearly

How fast, how furiously

You run

And I have no desire to run away with you

No

Give me the meat of life

I will sink in my claws and suck the juice of it all out

It will dribble down my chin and I will grin, widely

Supremely satisfied

“Safety”

reflection

You,

Fascinating.

Are you as free as you seem?

Is it madness embracing

your Curiosity

Bound and unbound

attached to risk-taking

But I have to wonder

Are you as free as you seem?

You fascinate me

You’re captivating —

A provocative haunting

in an untamed dream

I am deathly afraid

you are what you seem

Might stay trapped in my prison

Untouched and Unseen

Because you?

You could break me

You could rip through my seams

I crave to Know you

I fear my own screams

Fascinated by you…

chaotic and free?

Or stuffed in a jail cell

Mask on…

Like me?

Feed the Fish

It’s just Fear, I tell myself

The dynamics of my own mind

Keeping me in the tall glass tower

Thunderous Fear words booming through my flimsy glass walls

Shaking me

Threatening breaking me

All the fishes in the pond below have gone

They done swam away

‘Cause Fear had His say

And I have to admit that I’m afraid

Ego petrified

Exposed through these glass walls

Do they see me?

Will they eat me?

Or hate me?

Or beat me?

Or treat me like a leper?

What insult will be thrown my way today?

How will I be maligned —

Vomited on by a Better Kind

Oh, the sad dynamics of my own mind

It’s just Fear I say

Just Fear so you can either

Walk out the tall glass door or stay

It’s just a choice you make

With crumbs of food in my trembling hands

I close the door behind me and feed the fishes

Calling to them,

“There, there, “ I say, “It is safe.”

It was just Fear.