there’s a song that i heard when i was a child, and it rises and falls a bit, but it doesn’t ever find resolution. i could tell you how to find it, but it’s better if you don’t know.

people like to try to look for answers in the funniest places, like sinks, or doorknobs, or laughs, or silent pauses. i ask questions and a noise is elicited from your lips, but my heart doesn’t know what. the sounds just wash over the skin on my cheeks.

there’s something in me that makes me retread these pathways that i walk, and i walk the same paths every day. the paths are surrounded by walls of shadow, which respond only to tears. if i keep my eyes clear, and if i don’t blink, then i can see through the murky darkness when i start to well up, when my eyes start to water.

i want to know that you and i will be together forever. “i’ll never leave,” you say. i still don’t know for sure.

i want to know that you and i will be together forever. “i might have to go,” you say. i still don’t know for sure.

i want to know that you and i will be together forever. “i’m not coming back,” you say. i still don’t know for sure.

i want a different question. i was young, and i thought that to stop asking was to give up. i ground away at a stone and i tried to draw milk from it, and there was no relief, and i thought this was my life’s work. i do not have a wisdom, for you. though i was wrong.

why do i run from this fear, when some of my most free moments and loved instants were while i was shaking? i have been so deeply satisfied while panicked, again and again. some of my happiest moments are when i stare it in the face, and i keep walking. why am i so afraid of being afraid?

i have found just one technique that works. i say to my fear of your departure, “hello.”

i welcome it to stay as long as it wishes.

i say, “i will not attempt to find an answer, right now.”

i focus on the fear in my body. i do not do anything else. i do not intensify it, or hold onto it. i merely notice it. my mind will drift to more questions, and i will remind it that “i am not trying to figure anything out right now, i’m focusing on my sensations,” and i tune back in. and there is the fear.

i quiver, i shake, i cry, but i do not relent in my dedication to simply noticing, paying attention to how it feels. over time, sometimes a long time, sometimes a short time, it diminishes naturally, and over time, my body has retrained itself, and continues to retrain itself to accommodate this process. i still fall short, sometimes. i seek certainties in a world of chaos that does not provide for me, that physically can not provide for me.

but i am learning. i am gaining independence. i hear the fear in my voice like i’m an outsider. the terror is here, and i no longer wish for it to go away, as i silently recall that wishing never helped. instead, i renew my vow to live with this terror every day for the rest of my life, if i must.