Poem: What if fear holds a truth? 

What if fear holds a truth?

Seeing you smiling
talking
shining
happy has always brought joy –
bursting, heart throbbing overflowing joy.
Giddy –
I haven’t felt giddy in so long.
Your smile does that.
Your voice transforms me.
 
How to know if you’re earnest?
sincere, not playing or teasing;
seeking temporary diversion?
How to know how much to tip in?
Just a toe, both feet, my whole body,
pledge my life?
Do I dare keep risking all of me for one
who has never risked anything for me?
 
A fear I have rarely, if ever,
Articulated – What if I can’t?
What if I can’t be uninhibited?
What if I can’t be the free I envision?
What if I can’t be the carefree
lover I so desperately need?
What if I can’t cut loose the bonds
and be the loving woman I want to be? 
 
What if I’m not the muse, but only the siren
calling forth my own destruction?
What if I can only ever be the fantasy;
never the warm, enveloping body
that nurtures and births,
receives and gives to satiate our hunger? 
 
What if fear carries a truth? 
What if that truth is barrenness,  
unlovedness, rejection, lack  
of ability, lack of openness? 
Just lack, lack, lack?
Can’t? Can’t. Can’t!
I hate that word!
There is nothing I cannot do,
but there’s so much I cannot be.
And that is a truth.
 
What if I’m all talk and no arch?
All eyes and no hold?
What if the writing of the vision is
better than the performance of the words?
What if, even with you, I freeze –
unable to receive, to reach back
to touch and to hold?
What if everything I’ve ever wanted
is sitting in the palm of my hand
and my fingers are frostbitten?
Damaged. Destroyed. Inoperable.
Unable to function.
 
What if you are a mirage
in the oasis of my fractured hope?
And everything that pulls me towards you
is a figment of an imagination trapped in a loop?
 
What if fear holds a truth?
Perhaps the truth is so all-consuming,
fear is a subconscious defense mechanism
warning of the imminent end of me –
Solo Me, the me who is alone in the world –
the only way I’ve ever existed.
 
I write to release the fear. The truth is,
when you finally grab hold of me –
with both hands, all your heart,
mind, focus, and loving intention –
I will never let you go.

LaShawnda Jones
from AlONE | ALL In ONE