Fear, as I’ve found, isn’t worth a damn.

 

 

Fear is low sometimes, like on Scuffed elbow Saturdays when

heat washes up from the asphalt until it reaches telephone wires

littered with worn sneakers, laces tied together like two hands holding

on for dear life. That's when all is right in the world, cherry ice dripping

on solid ground where the floor can't fall out from under you and the air

is dead set above the dirt where it cant get under your bare feet.

 

 

It gets high too, though, don't get me wrong. Like on the high dive, the

crescendo of the jump etching into the thought of falling, and people

are lining up behind you yelling “hey girl we wanna turn just jump” but

the jump doesn't come until you're halfway down falling through the air

like a corkscrew and then smack! You're there.

 

Those scientists that have researched this kind of thing say that fear

is made in the brain with adrenaline and other fancy vernacular, but I

know that Fear starts in the toes, circulating tribulation until your toenails

curl and skin sweats till it hits the stomach. Then as you look over the edge

you feel a punch of dead air resting, swelling you up until you're ready to burst,

and when its gets to the head, and you can really see what’s happening, you're

already fumbling around trying to figure out what started this whole mess

 

 

Until eventually your whole body feels like a mess of strings and a puppeteer

is pushing ahead, each string plucking and pulling and then you're suddenly

on the edge of dread and someone’s holding your hand and pulling it forward

and you fall through the board and you're half dead just thinking about it.

 

Anyway, I don’t see any reason for keeping this Fear thing around anymore.

All it’s ever done is ruin a good jump.