A deep crimson. Darker than blood.
Slithering forward, darkening as it crashes like a flood.
Crimson tides churning into a dark purple with gashes of black.
Smokey colors ride to meet your face, covering, smothering. Air is what you lack.
A black surrounds restricts, weighs you into an abyss.
Down you sink into a bottomless pit. No end in sight, no bliss.
With just colors Fear is brought to life. But not lowercase fear, where you may have watched a scary movie and don’t want to make the walk from your bedroom to the kitchen and back. This is uppercase Fear, in all its uppercase glory. Some say few only feel such an immense force. Those who may have gone through a traumatic situation, and of course a traumatic situation is already defined by society as situations heavily laced with violence, sexual predation, etc.
But this isn’t true and this is known if any person on the street is asked to describe true Fear. There will be many similar characteristics among those descriptions. But one thing everyone agrees on is they never want to go back. No one wants to be in the deadly grip of Fear again. If you have fallen in that pit and somehow made it out, even with scars or wounds, you are grateful. You have survived regardless of how, whether it is by hard work, a great support system, or sheer luck. The emotions, the constant paranoia, the crippling disappointment as you watch yourself sink lower. The nausea of watching everyone around you attempt to help but Fear is crushing you. Being completely blind to any hope, happiness, and light because Fear has covered your eyes. These are only some personal descriptions but among all those emotions survivors come out only hanging onto one. Fear. But this time, I mean fear with a lowercase. The power of Fear is great and lethal and that’s precisely why many people are so afraid of it. But if that fear is taken and harnessed the right way, a person can use the fear to move them forward. Move forward so that they are never captured again.
This applies to a human’s strong desire to constantly wish time could stand still. Many times this desire is encouraged by a fear for what the seconds afterwards will bring. It’s almost as if the human mind has created a disdain for time and the future. Any time a solid good moment comes along the mind wants to completely stop time there, but why? I believe that in most cases, not all, people want to save those moments where Fear is not winning. After being imprisoned by a terrifying emotional force for however long, people want to hold onto any moments that give them protection and all the warmth Fear stole away. But freezing a moment in time takes away all the good that moment can give. If a person is not living that moment but rather constantly wishing to use it to keep Fear at bay, the person misses all that the moment is offering. If frozen in time none of the warmth would reach, none of the good would make positive changes. There would be no laughter; there would be no memories. There would be no air. So break the pattern, get rid of the crutch. No longer should it be “I wish time would stand still” but rather it should be “I can’t wait for more moments like these.” The real way to fight Fear is to look it in the face and say; you have no power over me. Having the thought in the mind is the first step; once you have that thought then the whole world seems to be on your side. Getting to this point may seem difficult, almost impossible, especially if you are currently in a situation where an emotion has you trapped. But a battle is never fought alone. No true victor of history has reached their success purely on their own, not even the demi-gods of myths. Help may come in many forms, and though it isn’t easy to see it every time it appears that does not erase its existence. Those around you stand by you as capable warriors to gallantly fight the battle, and that army has weapons. In fact, everything is a weapon to fight Fear, including a powerful weapon it gave you. The fear of what once was, the fear of a certain point can fuel the mind. No matter your personal strength at a specific time, the desire to never return to a dark place can be the most stable push to keep fighting. The emotion of fear becomes the very tool that motivates a person to progress, to live, to breathe. That’s how life continues, in breaths.
