A note from the Author –
Last night, after editing and working on my manuscript, I felt powerful.
Ready.
Ready to write more. To finish.
I’m only a few key scenes from submitting.
Submitting.
This morning? I hesitate.
Crafting reasons in my mind while I shouldn’t, why I couldn’t.
Fear twisted in me like a poisonous barb.
This was written inside that fear.
The Twin We Trust
By Justin Rawlinson
Of all those things we have to contend with,
Fear is the worst.
Not external, a monster from outside
Set against us in a pitched contest to the end.
If it were, how many of us would be prepared for that?
To have a nemesis which we could name,
One we could identify so readily.
Far easier to imagine ourselves the hero
When the shade of our worst imaginings
Is given flesh, presented before us.
No.
Fear is the worst.
It gathers up all the things we say about ourselves.
If your friends and family gathered around
Telling all that they knew, for the world to see,
Laying you out to the bone,
It would only be half as bad as if you did it
To yourself.
And that is fear. Fear is presenting everything
Down to the bone, cut to the marrow
Done to yourself.
Fear is the worst.
It is invisible,
Hidden,
Tucked away and nestled in our soul,
Waiting for the opportunity.
To cut with knives honed by our own minds,
Formless, muttering and cruel,
Far more cruel than bullies, or families
Monsters or men,
For of all the monsters with which we must contend
It is fear that gives us pain.
Without it, imagine.
Would we know?
Or are we so enamored by our own reflection
Distorted and cruel in the monologue of our minds
That the lack of it would cause distress
To know that our twin,
Preventing the worst outcomes,
Is no longer within, tucked away
Keeping us safe,
Safe from happiness and success,
From reunion and love,
Reckoning and confrontation.
And that is the cruel irony, the twisted knife
A perverse riddle,
What is it we love while we hate?
That protects from danger,
And thrusts us from joy?
Fear.
Justin Rawlinson 
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