Fear

Fear                            10/1/2015

We fear many things

But what if the worst really happened?

And everything we loved

Or ever hoped for

Was lost or taken away.

What if we saw the end

Hopeless and alone

Crying out to no avail

Without food or water.

What if we lost everything

But yet somehow survived

Living and breathing

Haunted by memories

And surrounded by emptiness.

Doubled over in grief

In a long dark night of the soul

One that goes on for years

With no end in sight.

What if we lost our family

And what if we lost our friends

Much less the good opinion

Of mediocre men. 

If we lost our reputation

Would our friends even stick around?

As our enemies circled

Sharpening their knives.

Holding on by a thread

Or sometimes nothing at all

Miraculously saved again and again

By the tiniest of margins.

I too felt the pain

And I also remember

Losing almost everything

And almost everyone.

But if we survive

We learn

That even the longest nights

Break before the dawn. 

We grow and in time

We understand

That what we had was nothing

And what we gained

Was everything. 

Now we know

That money isn’t everything

And now we know

We can survive.

But how could we ever

Want to live

While knowing

What we could have said,

And what we could have done. 

To love

Is to be hated

And to pursue truth

Is to know reality. 

Let them hate

And let them punish

Too afraid to live

And to afraid to know.