And This? This Is More

With all my heart, I do not believe that by any means, a man should be afraid of another person.
I do not believe that I should be afraid of anyone. Yet, I am.
At times, I swear that it seems like I am afraid of everyone (including you) because at some point, I fell for the tricks and slipped into the trap.

I believe that fear is draining. In fact, nothing drains us more than irrational fears. Nothing breaks us down or takes us away from ourselves like the fears that grow big and tall or become so huge and insurmountable that fear is all we see.
I hate the snowball effect, but I know this is real. Then again, it can be said that fear is an excellent motivator.
Fear can drive us in either direction. This can cause us to rise up and fight back. Or fear can have an adverse effect, in which case, we can turn inward and retreat, like a scared child who lives too afraid of the monsters in the closet or beneath the bed.

Fear –
This is something that we are all too familiar with.
I’m sure.
No one can say they never felt fear and nor can anyone say they’ve experienced fear from my perspective.
And maybe my fears are true.
Maybe I am weak.
Maybe I am not worthy or able or capable and maybe this is why I am the way I am.
Maybe . . .

I know fear very well.
In fact, fear and I go back a long way. Or maybe it would be better to say that fear and I go back as long as I can remember.
And this is more clear to me now because now I have the maturity and the ability of hindsight, which shows me that perhaps nothing is the way I assumed.
Or maybe this is too much too late.

I am not sure how awareness comes around or why awareness takes time. I am not sure if understanding comes in phases of age or readiness.
Maybe I never wanted to understand.
Maybe the head shrinks and psyche doctors were right about their theories regarding the inner-child.
Maybe childhood trauma is more powerful than we assume.
Or maybe readiness is like the stages of healing. Time takes time.
And I can dig it.
I understand that, at least from an intellectual perspective. 
Maybe I can say that somehow, realization came to me in different ways.
And fear?

Fears motivated me to run rather than fight back.
You know?

 My fears have either changed or grown over the years. But at the same time, I need to question this.
I need to reflect and expose my core to see why my engine runs the way it does.

I need to question myself.
What am I so afraid of?
Do I still fear the monsters beneath the bed?
Am I still that little boy?
Am I still afraid of the dark?
Or am I afraid of the possibilities of what lurks in the dark?
Is that it?
Fear of the unknown, they say.
Right?

Am I still afraid of being laughed at?
I am not that boy anymore.
I am not so small or weak.
I am not incapable or unable to defend myself.
I can stand up now.
I can fight back too.
Yet, I suppose my fear is something that comes from an old and long-gone vulnerability which took place in different stages of my awareness.

For example, say, like, the time I realized I was betrayed for the first time.
Or I can easily point out the time when I thought this could be love, and in the exchange of heat and kisses, I was called another man’s name.
Or wait, I can think about the humiliation and the foolishness that came over me when I realized a friend was not a friend at all.
I can reflect this back to when I was used, or mistreated, or simply put; I remember when I was made to be a joke by someone who spoke openly about me behind my back and smiled politely to my face.

I can trace back some of this pain to a moment of awareness that shook me to my core.
I remember well.
I spit at this too, my realization that I was used like a tool or more like a young and unknowing body for someone’s joy that is otherwise unthinkable or unspeakable.
I was just a little boy, you MOTHER FUCKER!

And still, only few know the story to its entirety. |
Only a very small and limited few know what happened. And one person, of course, turned this out to spew my secrets because our connection was spoiled, —and, so, as a means of artillery, this was shot out like a missile of gossip to fuel the rumor factories and break my heart.

Still, somehow, at least I kept my promise and kept my mouth shut about them.
Secrets are a two way street.
But that’s okay.
Their “affairs” are safe with me.

Fear is a bitch.
Or better, fear is the “mother fucker” of all mother fuckers.
I swear.

I’m not that boy anymore. Yet, I hold his things and walk with his weight. I care for him and keep him safe.
He is there. I know that
He is me, grown and decades older.
Yet, his fears are still very real to me.
Sometimes, I have to talk to him.
I tell him, I know where you are and I know why you hide.
I know about the monsters beneath the bed and I know why you curl the blankets around your feet at night.
I also know why you wish you could laugh more, but we agreed to hide your smiles. But this was my choice. Not yours.
And in the end, it was you who I tried to protect and in my attempts it was you who I hurt the worst because the ones who showed us the most love were the ones who we hurt the most for our pain.
I’m sorry.

I am still afraid.
I am afraid to wake up and find out that I was used like a pawn or that I was meaningless, like a pod of empty flesh used for someone’s gratification.
I know you remember this.
I know you remember the stains of your innocence and hence, I know you wanted to cry out, but I kept a hand over your mouth, too afraid that someone might hear. And thus, I was afraid like a soldier in the jungle and afraid that your screams would tell the enemy about our location.

I am afraid that I will be weak again.
I am afraid that I will be used again.
I am afraid to be lagged at and humiliated again.
I never got over these things.
I never got over the scars that people see and worse; I never allowed the wounds that no one knows about to heal.
I kept them raw, to remember so I’d never forget that this was done to me. I wanted to remember so I’d know the warning signs.
And still, the worms found the meat (in a sense) and like a casket seal, the maggots found my postmortem depression.

I’m sorry.
I cannot hide out loud or in plain sight or behind the veil or in the might of violence.
I have to give up my secrets.
I have to let go of my sins.
I have to resign from my post.
But what if I do?
Then what?
What do I do if I allow us to feel the air again and the worms come back or the laughter hits us like another slap in the face?
Then what?

I am afraid to be afraid again. So I say afraid to be free from being sacred out of nowhere.
I am afraid to be hurt again.
I am afraid that I am the fool and that my dance or my laugh or my singing is off key and unsightly or worse, unwanted.
I am afraid that I will be rejected, removed, replaced, or more to the point; I am afraid to find out that I am this unwanted or some kind of unlovable thing.

I am sorry.

Therefore, I am wired or prewired to run in fear and run away instead of standing true in the face of an insurmountable fear.
And what is this fear if the fear is not even real?
What are my fears which are nothing else but an assumption that all things are the same and all things will go wrong again
.
All people are the same.
Right?
I am the common denomiator
But no.
All people are NOT the same.
I know this.

I do.

And what?

What do I do now?
Do I expose this?
Do I share my immature dishonesties which were only a means or a method of immature defense mechanisms?
Do I diagnose this as an unresolved tension or post-traumatic stress disorder?
Do I say hey, this is me?
No one can use a fault or flaw as an excuse forever.
I know that fear has followed me throughout my life, and if so, do I just succumb, or do I stand up and learn to live another way?

Do you know that I have never been comfortable letting the world know what I like, or what I adore or love?
Like, the way I look at the body and feel desire for certain parts, or how I adore you in open-toed shoes . . .
God, there is so much that turns me on.
And I want to try everything at least three times, just in case I did something wrong the first two.

Did you know that I would never allow anyone to be close enough because in my head, my heart was too distant and of course, I assumed people are inconsistent.
I assumed that people are often untrustworthy. And, so, why allow someone past the tripwire and why give someone the map to my minefield, which kills us both, by the way.
I have done this, at least, essentially or more so emotionally, and thus; I have spent decades defending a little boy who woke up to an idea that I was used by a loved one. I was trying to prevent a moment of awareness from happening again.

I never had real friends . . .
This was mostly because I was afraid to find that I was a joke, and thus I was vulnerable, which I hated.

How many people need to pay for someone else’s sin?
How many burials do I have to see before I realize how precious it is to live?
How many people need to receive the blood from someone else’s cut?
I don’t know . . .

How many years need to pass before I wake up to the realization that all the players from my youth are gone.
They no longer exist.
It’s safe to come out now

No one can or will ever expose or break me like that again, —and so, even if someone looks to mount or take advantage, then so what?
What are they capable of?
Can they really hurt me?
Or is this just another youthful fear of not fitting in or being unliked?
The fears I have are outdated and gone yet; I have kept them alive and well for decades.
Maybe it’s time.

I ask this question, more as an out loud moment than an outpouring request for the universe to answer me.
How long until I open my eyes.
How long do I have to carry the weight?
How long do I have to be afraid to realize that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

I can say this again.
I was always afraid.
I’ve always been afraid to let myself go.
I’ve always been afraid to dance.
I’m afraid to be out of step and be embarrassed.
I’ve always been afraid to laugh or smile or let myself go because I was always afraid of that weakness or that vulnerable feeling that I was somewhat stupid.
I let my guard down a few times.
And this hurt.
This hurt me enough to make me crawl back in my shell.

I was afraid to be my true, authentic self or be like a kid who wanted to play, which is fine, to be honest.
But this all depends who we play with.

My fear was that I was  unlike anyone else and that no one around me is like-minded. I was afraid that I was too different. No one was like me or in tune with the beats of my drum.
Hence, I never assumed or believed that I would find someone who understood, cared, or lived in a like-minded way.

And if someone did, I was too afraid to invest in them because what if I “give you everything I have” only to find out that you realized who I am, and now that you know, you’ll never want me again.

My biggest fear is to be alone.
And I am alone.
Crisis achieved and crisis everted.

My next biggest fear is to be rejected and exposed or laughed at, which is interesting to me. I call this interesting because there are those who knew this about me.
They knew the cracks and the flaws. They knew where my bones were buried and even more, in an aim at my social destruction; despite the trust we used to share; my weakness attacked and my truths were used like mortars from the guns of angry gossip machines.

I still never revealed anyone else’s truths.
I never told their secrets,
Maybe I did this because I know how shitty it is to do that to someone, or to expose their weakness, or to befoul their life or their family or their name, just because the friendship ended.

And I don’t know why I didn’t return fire
Am I afraid of them?
Am I really afraid of anyone?
Aside from my fears of everyone, am I so afraid that I will be physically punished again?
Or did I avoid them with hopes that maybe the wars could end. Or if there is no peace, maybe I sat  quietly so that their weapons or emotional destruction would lose their explosions.

I have lost decades of my life.
I lost time and opportunities
I lost the chances to love or be loved and I have lost the most incredible sense of intimacy as well.
I lost the chance to be known and to be known and loved is to be happy without fail.
I believe this yet, I squandered this before.
But not again

I have never let my guard down.
But I want to.
Nothing is more draining than fear.
Nothing is worse than fighting with someone you love or seeing them weep.
Nothing is worse than this.

No one should ever be afraid of another person and nor should I be so afraid that I fail to be seen.
I should never be afraid to dance
Or sing . . .

It has taken me decades to admit to my weakness.
I hope that this does not come out and fail me or come to no avail.
I hope that this turns into strength. And if not, then so be it.
I’m not strong anyway.
Besides, I would rather reach for the stars and fall  while trying than sit still and watch someone else have the love that I deserved.

 No one else is going to save me.
But –
No one is going to replace you.
No one can.
And no one will.

With full disclosure, I am where I am now and in the interim, or until your doors open to me, I will hold this spot for you because like I’ve told you—I have a dance in mind, and whether I seem too simple, or silly, or childish, either way, I don’t care.

I have decided to beat up the demons of my past in different ways because previously, I would only beat myself.
Now, it’s time to beat my demons by defying their lies and showing my lies so that I can finally be true

(to you)