Say Hello to Mr. Fear!

My Fear
Lawrence Raab

He follows us, he keeps track.

Each day his lists are longer.

Here, death, and here,

something like it.

Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams,

what do you have for me tonight?

And he looks through his sack,

his black sack of troubles.

Maybe he smiles when he

finds the right one. Maybe he's sorry.

Tell me, Mr. Fear,

what must I carry

away from your dream.

Make it small, please.

Let it fit in my pocket,

let it fall through

the hole in my pocket.

Fear, let me have

a small brown bat

and a purse of crickets

like the ones I heard

 singing last night

 out there in the stubbly field

before I slept, and met you.

Wow! This poem gave me weird goosebumps the moment that I read it. I cannot describe whether the feeling was good or not, because I am not too sure myself whether the poem was meant to be something good or not!

 I remember, faintly, last year in AP Language when we were required to read a story that had a similar meaning behind it. The meaning was securely held around this idea that either "Mr. Fear, Mr. Doubt, or Mr. Confusion" will take a hold of our lives. The "fear" aspect was especially relate able because of the fact that everyone has fears- for me? It is simple... I fear failure.

While reading this poem I could see the little devil sitting on my shoulder continuously reminding me," You are going to fail, there is no way that you will be able to achieve this or do that." Along with feeling slight anxiety because of that, the poem also reassured the strength that it is OK to go right up to Mr. Fear himself and ask what he is going to do. The strength is finding the ABILITY to actually CONFRONT your fears head on.

The climactic moments really added to the tone of "stress" upon asking Mr. Fear what he shall do tonight, those were the times that I could feel the goosebumps rising because I knew that going up and confronting the fear is usually not the easiest thing to do. In the end, it leaves with a sort of untangled mess because by saying,"like the ones I heard last night out there in the stubbly field before I slept, and met you." it feels so unfinished. I guess that is where us, the readers, come into play because we are supposed to finish what Lawrence Raab started- we have to bid farewell to our long time friend... Mr. Fear.