fear is the thing that broke her

(disclaimer: if this is too heavy i'm sorry i didn't mean to be depressing if thats how it comes across. these thoughts were in my head and so i wrote the memories down.  you asked for it.)

 FEAR
I cried so hard and so bad that my lungs ached against my rib cage and my throat was raw and i was more like a dry corn husk than a little girl.  i hurt from crying even though that's not close to what you've probably hurt and i know its not near what they hurt.
That kind of crying is like there's an ocean inside my head and right now its really hard to breathe and so the salt water spills through your eyes but it keeps the fish inside, trapped and hurting your head.

i want to write this right now because because I'm paranoid I'll forget my thoughts.  that i'll forget
         something.
 --I'm writing this right now because i want to make you THINK and make ME stop thinking and let all of the junk and the thoughts and this rising ocean and the turmoil and the peace go somewhere other than trapped inside of me.  Oh man, it feels so nice when its lifted off your heart. I just want to put it somewhere else, and if it touches you then thats just frees up my heart a little more.  
                  because it scares me to have it all there.  

I am afraid you're being let down because of me.  Not that i think these will hurt your heart too, but I'm afraid of not being good enough for you, not good enough for what you need.  I'm afraid that this is too heavy but I'm writing it anyway. I'm afraid of you because i don't know who you are, I'm afraid of you. Yes pleasefindmehere, I'm afraid of the big bad wolf too, because i never believed in him but now i do and i'm worried he's sitting right next to me right now and I have no idea.  I'm afraid.
                                                              ..........................................
and fear rocked my world:

I don't know what day it is. Maybe a tuesday?  But i come home from school and dad's not there and you, mom, have got the deer-in-the-headlights look that I've NEVER seen you have, and i get the feeling you've just been swept away by the semi and you're gone.
your mouth moves, makes some sounds.

dad is at the hospital.
they think he's about to have a stroke.
He may be about to die.

repeat.  slow down, slow motion, freeze. repeat.


drop the bomb.  drop it because i'm already gone, i'm flattened in the Hiroshima wake of empty sound and this silent wave of frozen shock.  and then it hits me like the tsunami has crashed through my being and the thunder's sounded inside my eardrums and i gasp because my breath had stopped and i break and the ocean crashing in my head obliterates my being because
my dad is going.  and i don't know if he is gone.
My dad.
dad.
i love you dad.  please dad don't go.  DON'T GO don't die please please
please Father don't don't let him die.
Father, please.
please, oh please Father, keep him here with me.  let them be wrong.  please MAKE THEM WRONG.
he's my dad.

what would i do?

Father, please, i will do anything.

don't let it be a stroke.
make him strong.
make him come home
make him come home well
please don't take him away let them be wrong I WILL DO ANYTHING just please keep him here!!
don't let him die.
dad please don't die. please dad, dad please don't die.  Come home and be all right. don't be a stroke, don't be anything, just come home don't die.
please.

I sleep crying and i pray crying and i sleep praying.
please.
the ocean on my face turns to pretzels and i cry so much my throat hurts and it hurts to breathe
because my lungs
are constricted
please
like my eyes are
raw
and my prayers
please
are my thoughts and its all i think.
please.
the ocean on my face turned into a reef and gave me a cold.

my dad was my everything.
he was my teacher and my friend and my idol, the hero i wrote about in my hero essay at school.
he is more perfect than a lot of people,
and i love him

and he came home.
                                                      ...........................

                  Dad came home alive. 

              but i have never been so afraid.

i have never prayed so hard.

i have never wanted anything so badly.

i sometimes forget and think that i am afraid of little things.  and then i remember that i have forgotten that i can be brave and that fear is not a spider or the thing like it.

THIS IS MY FEAR. This was my fear. 
and it didn't come true. 

but FEAR is the thing that squeezes the oxygen from your veins, it goes slowly, squeezes them one at a time and at first you won't notice but then you can't breathe and then you turn red and maybe cold and maybe you'll be frozen like in a Hiroshima silent shock wave

with 

fear.

and fear waits.  It will come back. 
it never left.

everett mills.