My Son Is a Marine by: Jo Anne Allen

Fear - by Mike Mullins

Fear 

Paralyzing, eye-popping phobia.

Stare ahead, unthinking myopia.

Sweat streaming, shivering shimmers.

Dark shadows, cloudy mind-dimmers.

No thought but to escape terror’s source.

No path or plan; just “away” is the course.

If not life ending, fear is life-changing.

Warning bells may be false but clanging. 

Fear unbridled, clammy and controlling.

Spirit stymied, heart and core recoiling.

Who is the person numbed by this force?

One does not recognize self in due course.

Fingers clamp, crushing even the airways.

Breathing comes in gasps, sighing always.

Running from duty causes cowering alone.

Cringing in the dark may leave one a drone. 

Knee-knocking, slobber-spewing fear.

I know it, as have many over the years.

Every day I awaken to fear of an unknown.

It crowds me, causes weakness in the bones.

What of a loss of life; loved one or my own?

The times I allow it control I would disown.

Standing in the shower, me and my fear,

I look into a mist of water, shedding tears. 

In combat I cowered within; it did not rule.

Somehow, I conquered it; it became a tool.

I moved forward and learned a lesson well.

Giving into fear can make mere living hell.

I carry that lesson among my many scars.

I survived and my blessings are in the stars.

Fear visits in many ways, immutably there.

One must step out, face it, and stay squared.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I have feared job loss and lost them.

I have feared love’s loss and lost them.

I feared the pain of my children growing.

I have watched them walk away knowing

I gave them that strength in my weakness.

The swelling pride leads me to meekness.

I have lost those I loved to life hereafter.

Fearful awaiting that fate was not disaster. 

I laid in an emergency room, lights glaring,

My family close by and fearfully despairing.

I held a bag of morphine for a dieing man.

It was my first closeness to death in Vietnam.

I saw the look in mother’s eyes as she passed.

I remember the look in my sons’ faces at last

When they realized I was broke, close to done.

Fear has often shaken me but I have yet to run.  

Never a morn shall shine on me that fear is not at hand.

Perhaps fear, like sadness, makes us appreciate joy

And courage, and love, and togetherness

In ways we never could without it.