Christopher Tobal
Fear is. . .

Fear is an empty staircase that winds its way to a wicked place.

Fear creeps like a rabbit, fear stomps like a bigfoot stone machine.

It looks through crescent lenses with black iris eyeballs.
Fear stalks like silence breathing into my ear.

Fear dances on fire and laffs like a demon, it smiles so demented, it's spooky.

Fear, the jack-o-lantern with no cut-out face breaks my spine and screams at me to run, it trips me up and bites the flesh of my calves. Fear is a bitter apple filled with maggots, it never comes home on time but always leaves a note burned into the carpet with its teeth.

Fear drags me off. Fear tells me things that aren't true. It's a building with no windows and a door on the ceiling. It's a stolen wristwatch, a crow that sings like a chickadee, a wishful hand clutching my throat. Fear never shuts my eyes while he rapes the city and crushes my house. Fear is a pile of melted chocolate. Fear is Robert Deniro with glowing red pupils whispering it was me, it was me, I made those boys kill the old blind bastard, as he smiles and says again, it was me. A cold sweat in a freezing room, lights off and windows shattered, shivering in my naked clothes. Fear is a pig's head, a four-hundred-legged centipede shooting into my mouth and wiggling on my fingers. Fear is a pointless thought. Fear is my senseless mother being dragged off in a crazy jacket with leather straps and jingling buckles. Fear is a green sky or a coal-grey cloud against a tree in summer. Dying. Living. In fear.

<< Back to Issue 4, 2002