fear factor

this is quite the cage I’m in, you see

suppose it is fear, consider it as such

for my nerves are trembling and my

heart quakes with calamity

for my eyes are open but unseeing and I

acutely sense a thrumming under the veins in my wrist

they lurk long and hardened, bloated and thick

I itch to rip them out

like roots wrenched from damp soil

and still the blood rushes on

soldiering hard and fast through the tunnels of war

so that the walls do not deflate and collapse

and yet

I wish they would, I wish

I could retch and rid myself

of the hesitation that has built a nest in my throat

and I could snatch my fingers away

from the crates full of dreams that lie crumbling on the shelf

and I call out for them but my lips are shut and my cords are cut

so they whisper to me instead

taunting me with their slimy tentacles of doubt

and they drag me into their lair beneath the sea where I

tread lightly

nimble fingers weaving and dripping and swelling and slipping

to build a raft before the waves soar higher, crashing

overhead; and it is too late