Listing Fears

I like the threads Tom Beckett spins out from his blog. His list of likes spread to quite a few blogs, the latest I’ve seen is on David Nemeth’s blog (scroll down to May 8). His Vanishing Points of Resemblance, among other qualities, is an exquisitely/excruciatingly honest poem. Tom, even in the act of vanishing is not afraid to reveal. He does so again in a recent blog. He asks other to weigh in on their fears. Ready or not (and that includes me), especially for Tom, I offer up some of mine (in no particular dis/order):

I’m afraid I can’t find the right words.
I’m afraid I can’t find words.
I’m afraid I can’t find the words to communicate with Liam (8) and Noemi (5) when I anger them, when they’re scared, when they ask me if/when I smoked dope, when they ask me about sex, about decapitation of unwitting, idealistic young men.
I'm afraid of the routine, the route. The rout.
I’m afraid the one day I forget to tell Liam and Noemi and Laurie I love them, I’ll be killed or they’ll be killed.
I’m afraid my moments of clarity are actually muddled.
[I’m afraid I’ll have to cut out some of these fears. I’m afraid of you reading my fears.]
I’m afraid Noemi will get hit by a car. I’m afraid I might be the driver.
I’m afraid my most recent poem is flotsam at the local sewage plant.
I’m afraid I’ll have regrets as my last thoughts. I’m afraid I won’t have regrets.
I’m afraid the world I leave to Liam and Noemi is worse than the world my parents left to me.
I’m afraid Liam and Noemi won’t see that for all the Bushes and Sharons and other small-minded, short-sighted “leaders,” this is one hell of a beautiful sphere to be alive in.
I’m afraid that my fears have more weight than my joys.
I'm afraid that one day I won't feel the wind.
I'm afraid of writing too deep, too narrow, too straight, the expected without inflection.
I’m afraid that I will wake one day and my joys will have been smoke and mirrors.
I’m afraid of the comments to this blog.
I’m afraid that one day I will decide to stop writing. I’m afraid that there will be one day when I don’t ask myself why I write.