Fear State
A poem by Julia R. DeStefano
Fear State
If death can reveal what it means to truly live,
when does the loving start?
And must the bed be so empty?
My friend Jane and I are talking on the phone one afternoon, commiserating about life.
She thinks I’m having an identity crisis because I’ve only ever been a teacher.
I say: “No, I’ve been typecast for too long. I can see the good in this,”
though it feels like I’m trying to make myself believe me.
I leave out the part about him.
That when I don’t see him for a while, I get afraid of being a fantasy.
Afraid like the Tom Petty song about a woman in love
when he holds the key to break his chains
like the narrator in “Two Gunslingers” who finally says:
I’m takin’ control of my life now, right now. Oh yeah.
I’m terrified of having something else stripped from me,
and I share that much with her.
Afraid about him and me and everything
because I’ve never loved this long and hard before,
let alone loved loving so hard.
Jane says: “You can’t discount the trauma you just went through. You’re craving safety.”
It’s hard to admit that she’s right,
though I don’t share the part about wanting my man
and aching to melt into the security of his arms.
This isn’t The Avengers — I don’t want an end game.
I want the start me up and ride, baby.
The take me out, take me home or just the stay home.
I’ve always been easy going like Sunday morning.
Jane says: “You should go on a road trip.”
All I can do is laugh because she knows I’m a worker
and anyway, wasn’t it the Goo Goo Dolls who said, “Here is gone”?
But then, they also said: “I want to be all you need.”
I’m constantly amazed at how everything with me comes back to love -
this thing that makes the world go ‘round.
Paulo Coelho says that we don’t need to explain our love, only show it.
Janis Joplin says: “Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.”
Bryan Adams says: “It was the summer of ‘69.”
I say that love, real love, needs tending and care
to survive and keep growing.
I say that love is action,
so give me the wine and the frangelica and the hand on my back.
A little bit naughty, a little bit nice and always with softness.
Any way I need it, every way I can give it,
maybe with an ocean view.
Could I ever be a wife, a mother in this life?
A full-time lover to start?
Could I ever let myself be a teacher again?
Maybe I am having an identity crisis.
Who is this woman staring back at me in the mirror?
She does a damn good job at hiding her emptiness
and needs to hear it’ll be ok.
I’m trying to figure it all out, no closer than I was yesterday.
But I do know it’s what we do after we realize
that life didn’t turn out the way we’d expected.
I need a soft rain with an umbrella.
I need a storm to get me wet.
A pursuit to draw out my beauty.
A good old-fashioned Carmen Sandiego chase scene
in three, two,
ONE!
© Julia R. DeStefano
