If I could, I’d whisk this fear away. I’d watch as it disappeared into the horizon like a shooting star on a starry summer night, spirited away into the ether of the nether-realms.
But then, I’d be running away from myself—an impossible endeavor. Running through a maze with no exit. Flinging one foot in front of the other in a maddening frenzy. Eyes dart to and fro in panic as the walls close in on me, pressurizing my heightened emotions until even the sweat beading on my skin feels oppressive.
And so I have to face the walls that block me from feeling comfortable in my own skin. I kick and thrash at the walls as they stand ever more sturdy. And for a moment, I contemplated the wall in all its dominant glory.
Exhaustion weighs my body down, pulling it to the base of my mind—a pull that feels all-consuming, as if I’ve become part of the void spinning, sinking deeper and deeper until it feels like a gentle sway back and forth, lulling me on the waves of panicked complacency. A place where my shallow breaths have become commonplace and the ache in my chest has solidified into a lump that burns ever so slightly to remind me I’m still alive.
Dangerously, I think I could stay here.
Dangerously, I think it’s safer here than it is out there. Stuck here in this time warp, frozen in the space between life and death, the cold relief of peace just before death has kissed me into the unknown.
Like a rabbit in the canines of a wolf, it is oppressive, suffocating, and painful, yet one begets the other in a primitive pattern set long before either existed. It feels right in the mouth of the beast. It’s freeing to submit to him.
But is the peace worth the stagnation? Is this the freedom I want? I’m cradled between the fangs of the wolf because the vast plains were too vast, I was too exposed, I was scared. But now, I’ll never feel the warmth of the sun or taste the sweetness of fruits again.
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