Chronophobia - the fear of time

I turn the door handle and walk inside again. 

How much more suffering do I have to bare? The excitement I felt when I left still hangs in the air like the rising waves of a mirage, shimmering, whispering.

I counted backwards for months until I felt the wheels of the airplane leave the earth, 0 days, 0 minutes, 0 seconds. 

I did my penance, I paid for my crimes. I shut that door so triumphantly, victorious over time itself. I fooled myself into thinking I would not feel the crushing loneliness again. It slowly bleeds me out, weighs down on me like a million hands, pushing down until I can't raise my head.

A chill passes through me as breathe in the emptiness, 120 days, 5 hours, 23 seconds.

See, leaving is easy, running away is easy, escaping is easy. But coming back to the mess you've left, the hearts you've broken, the echoes of your tears? 

Leaving is easy; it's coming back that kills you.

Arsonphobia- the fear of fire

Every time the dream is the same. I see emerald grass, glistening with tiny glowing orbs of freshly fallen dew. The sky is so carelessly blue, so cloudlessly ignorant. The sunlight spills in liquid gold shafts through trees, thick with India green leaves.Vines creep leisurely up the gnarled bark of the trees. They sprout fuchsia flowers as big as teacup saucers and fill the air with a sweetly intoxicating scent. Huge butterflies, heavy with brilliant blue hue wing their way through the perfumed air. They perch, poised like dancers, on the flowers.

I walk through the trees, my bare feet sinking into the soft grass until I see the lake. It reflects the trees like an indigo mirror. Suddenly I am filled with an unbearable thirst. I run towards the still waters and reach my hand into it. It is not quite cold and the water tastes not quite sweet.

I lie down in the grass next to the lake and close my eyes. I hear birds trilling in the trees, the humming of insects and I feel a gentle wind stir the grass. 

When I open my eyes everything has changed. The lake is gone, only a concave space remains, brown earth, cracked from heart, parched. I look about me, confused. The world is on fire. The trees scream as flames lick through their green hair. The air is hazy with smoke and heat. I get up and stumble as I run, my lungs burning for air. The vines have fallen away from the trees and lay in ashes on the scorched ground. The heat beats against my skins, angry, vindictive. The grass is a carpet of blackness, a field of death.

I have done this; I have set fire to this place. Tears fill my eyes as towers of blazing red and fiery orange surround me. I cry because I feel so much guilt for destroying everything, because the smoke is burning my eyes and because a blue butterfly falls from the sky and writhes on the ground at my feet, the tips of its wings ablaze.

I wake up with the tears still in my eyes.

Noctiphobia- the fear of the night

Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.

Today I want to be a lamp. I want to find someone swallowed by darkness and I want to reach my hand out, offer them a light to see where they are, how to get out, and most importantly, I want to be the light that lets them see who they are, clearly, for the first time.

Today I want to be a lifeboat. I want to be a safe haven in the turbulent seas of life. I want to give someone a nights rest while the storm rages on, and I want to take them home, desperate and winded and exhilarated. I want to see their face as we reach the shore together.

Today I want to be a ladder. I want to help someone climb, to all the places they had never thought to reach. I want to offer them a leg up, the chance to get everything they ever wanted, to help them ascend out of the hole they have dug themselves into.

I’m going to be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.

Maybe be because it is so dark and the waters are so deep and I can’t seem to be able to climb my way out.

Kenophobia- the fear of voids

I gather together the things that happen to me through the day, all the things that I am brimming over to share with you, and I store them away like shining copper pennies. I want to place each one of them in your open palm and see the way you smile at me and stroke my cheek with the back of your finger.

I keep them in my pocket until the sun sets, my eyes on the door handle, and then I throw them into the well and wish. I wish that tomorrow, that tomorrow you’ll be here.