His pitch black coat glides over the ground
He moves stealthy, gracefully, not making a sound
His red beady eyes gleam in the shadows
He is the step-brother of Death
He is Fear
Fear resides in the card board box in the dark crevices of my broken mind
The box is ratty and rumpled, held together by duck tape and chains
Fear is always fighting
Fighting to break out of his cage
Break out to poison my mind
Break out and destroy the peace I have worked so hard to maintain
I always know when he is about to break free
His screeching grows louder, I can feel him clawing the box’s insides
I try as hard as I can to keep my hold tight on the chains
But Fear does escape, he seeps through cracks when my grip does slip
And then he is free
His stench fills my head, the smell of burnt flesh
It dances around my mind attacking my senses
I try to stay strong, but he knows I am vulnerable
He knows my mind is cracking
He knows where my weak points are
He knows what makes me tick
Fear rushes forward to the weak patches in my mind
And he jabs them as hard as he possibly can
Fear is a person no longer
It is fire
Searing my mind
I can feel it burn through my veins
It begins to melt me from the inside out
Every memory from my childhood surges forward
Each one taking me back to a time I had forgotten
I could feel myself shutting down, my mind going limp
And when I come back to reality, Fear would be where he belonged
Back in his cage