How to Experience Fear:

Fear arrives like a switch,

no prelude, no drumroll,

just the body stopping.

Dead lights on the road of the mind,

eyes wide, breath glued to the ribs,

time syrup-thick, hypnotic.

Welcome it, I tell myself,

not as a threat but a guest.

Let it run through the nerves.

Name the freeze, feel the floor,

notice the heart still beating.

I unclench my jaw, blink once,

invite the motion of a breath.

This terror has no teeth-

only shadows rehearsing power.

I step toward the blur,

touch it, and it thins.

What isn’t there dissolves

when witnessed.

Fear passes through,

a guest leaving no trace behind.

Afterward, silence hums.

The body remembers movement again-

slowly softly.