For My Companion Fear

I know thee well Fear.
At times, you are my companion.

You dare to stay when I ask you to leave.
You hurt me, harm me, prey upon me.

You take joy in my worries and pains.
You seem quite wart-like to me.

Growing without abandon,
Taking healthy skin with you when you leave me;

You tear down hope and destroy vital bits of me.
You are a part of that naughty black tide

Which surrouds me like a too tight coat.
You deserve no place in my life. 

Yet, I consider times when you warned me and kept me from harm.
You helped me then.

How can one and the same thing harm and hurt?
What sort of strange companion are you?

Why do so many things both help and hurt?
How can one thing, one item both help and hurt?

Helping at one time, harming at another;
Such actions stink quite frankly of betrayal.

Fear causing hurt, worry, pain,
Results of a solid life risk analysis.

Optimism is found in hoping and anticipating the good.
Will the glass be half full for me?

I know only that I am me.
I think and feel things.

Stimulated by externatl and internal stimuli am I.

What more is there that I need to know about life? 
Are these not the foundations upon which we all grow?

Which is the betrayal of fear to me?
That it hurts or helps?

What is the true nature of fear?

It winds from within and without,
First in uncertainty, later in doubt, and finally in fear.

Searching for that crack that tiny sliver of an opening,
It casts its paws into my wounded heart.

There seems to be much unknown and little known.
Will it always be this way?

Fear answers that nothing can ever truly be known.
All is lost and awash in the sea of life.

Nothing is stable.
All is adrift.

By Huh Chuh @ huhchuh@yahoo.com © April 2002