After a night of thinking too much.

Fear is thinking that the scenarios in your head could actually come true. That the things that went bump in the night could be more than rogue draughts under the ill-fitting doorways to your heart. That the glass which seems half-full will no longer remain so once you put your thirst into practice. Fear is the irrationality of a nightmare becoming flesh, and overruling your concept of stability and normalcy. Fear is paralysing and debilitating. Fear is the full-body cast of plaster on your damaged frame, pinning you to the place where bedsores of anxiety and paranoia perpetuate a cycle of emotional infirmity.

Fear is the awareness that the end of your existence is a phone call away, the confirmation of the imminent collapse of your brittle architecture. Fear is the knowledge that others can find a place on the lifeboat, but your inflatable vest will leave you vulnerable to attacks from below.

Fear will petrify you- not in the ghoul-in-the-cupboard-under-the-stairs way, but like a life-form made stone by scorching forces from within the bowels of the earth. It puts you on trial, with a never-ending parade of witnesses, an archive of irrefutable evidence. It judges and condemns, and sentences, and shows no mercy. Fear decapitates and disembowels, it takes the body and preserves it as a cloudy formalin-soaked husk in a jar.

Fear brings an empty sack and a sawn-off shotgun to your heart, and holds you hostage while it rummages through your belongings, looking for anything of value and destroying the rest. It burglarises and robs, and is ignorant of human rights or constitutions.

Fear is a lie.

The truth? The truth is a lost object suddenly uncovered in the back of a drawer. Truth is putting on new clothes and feeling fresh. Truth is being discharged from the hospital ward, a certificate saying that you are healthy enough to carry on. Truth is in the experiences of others, the validation that comes with common knowledge. Truth says you are not alone, that hope exists and we can endure. Truth mobilises and encourages, and heals. Truth is a surprise gift in the mailbox, the reuniting of long-lost relatives. Truth restores and brings restitution. Truth is an exposure of false evidence and a verdict of Not Guilty. Truth is transparent- it’s always there, but sometimes you look right through, and miss it. Truth rewrites endings and revises condemnation. It defies destruction and cynicism with happy endings, and erases the meaningless graffiti of emotional vandalism with a fresh coat of paint. Truth is there. You can grab it, share it, hold it, live it. The truth will always be the truth, relative to nothing but itself. Truth is not a Winfrey-ism or a motto on a badge, but more real than the landscape which surrounds you. Truth is sulphuric acid to fear. Truth smothers it and dissolves it, reveals it as nothing but holograms and mirrors.

Fear fears truth. Truth fears nothing.

I don’t particularly give a hoot if you don’t relate to this non-entry. I need to set some boundaries in my head, so you can skip this one and go to the next, which may be funny, or it may not. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.