I do get scared sometimes about what I write about
Sometimes I wonder if it’s too vulgar
Too raw
Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t beautiful enough
If it’s too heavy
If it’s too depressing
Sometimes I doubt if it is good enough to post
Or I’ll get nervous about what you’ll think about it
And sometimes I’ll go back and delete something
If it reveals too much about a friend
Or if it’s basically porn
But mostly
I don’t have a filter
Mostly
I pride myself on being a ‘fearless writer’
Never scared to explore the difficult things in life
Never scared to point out hypocrisy
Never scared to call out our society
Never scared to examine myself
Fearless
Like a fighter
Like Hemingway
Like Charles Bukowski
Like Dostoevsky
Like Melville
Like Orwell
Like Huxley
Like Rand
Like Shelly
I thought that I could do it . . .
I thought I could be fearless when creating
But it’s not true
I get scared these days
I don’t get as drunk as I used to
I am not as lost
Not as broken as I used to be
I explored the darkness
And now my eyes are a little darker for it
I held up a mirror
And what I saw was my fears
And my lies
And my meaning
And my beliefs
And my pain
And my past
And my future
And then the mirror broke
And my fears escaped
And became shadows on my white walls
Whispering doubt to me
And my reflection now
Doesn’t look like me anymore
The more I care about this
The more afraid I get of it
And I am starting to care quite a bit
No, I am not fearless
I am afraid
All the time
About everything
I just get too high to notice most days.
CH 2/23/24