Fear
M is on a plane. For those of you who don't know M, he is my partner. It's likely a terminal relationship. i try to comfort myself by remembering that life, itself, is terminal. Sometimes this helps. Today the thought only makes it worse. Off he goes to grad school in the big T and here I remain in the Big Apple. A town that has crouched down on my soul lately. It's not that I don't love it. It's that I am overwhelmed by the power of memory and the saturation of each one, alive and electric and seeping through the bricks, the streets, the light, the windows. A table and chairs outside a restaurant. I believe memory is where ghosts are born. Even now, I am haunted by a city and one person who will soon be missing from it. To this time and this place, he will be a ghost.
In light of all this, i decided I would write down the fears I can feel now. At least I can name them. I can look at them. I have little hope this will ease their potency but you never know. Here goes...
I fear loneliness.
I fear the monotony of every day spent without M. I fear the days to come when there will be no hope of his return.
I fear the plane he sits in now will not land.
I fear death itself, but not as much as life without M. How do people do it? Go on moving forward in their lives after losing so large.
I fear the life I lead will return to something average. Something I settle for. Something I fall into like a stupor.
I fear I will never again love quite like this.
I fear the pain that reduces to a dull ache when distance of days and space comes between us. Everyone drifts into acquaintance, even the dearest loved ones.
I fear I will not recover from such a loss.
I fear I will.
I fear the hours, one piling on top of the next. I fear the prison their carcasses create.
I fear I will be forgotten.
I fear I will never be known.
These are a few of my favorite fears. I don't really have a song to sing as antidote. I have plenty that make the pain of it even more raw.