Infinite fear

Fear to fear to fear to fear.

If sentences could readily bend,

I’d twist that one end to end,

To illustrate the following truth:

Fear brings fear in an infinite loop.


Instead a daily dose of wretched I shall permit –

Of living life choked by anxious threat;

Of more than words bending end to end –

Of wretched routine from my trembling mind slip.


For I envy the skies of a cloudless day,

Into such clarity I breath clouds of gray,

To darken and slow the world that I may,

Reveal the links that could bring me pain.


Take my word, on sunlit morns I pray for rain.

For my eyes are sensitive to the sun’s rays;

I am jealous of the green and life the sun feeds,

Jealous that I don’t vibrate at such vital speeds,

My vitality lost to the rot in my rotten seeds.


This I know: fear and pain are my eternal due.

For I choke clear air with a deathly hue,

Thereby ensuring the truth remains true:

That fear brings fear in an infinite loop.

6 responses to “Infinite fear”

  1. Matthew! How come you know the exact details of the workings of my mind?

    Is it because we are alike? Or is it because our minds are as fragile and creaky as each others?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Dear Lalitha. I don’t know, but I am glad our minds can reverberate in sync halfway around the world.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. It does Matthew. It does. And coincidentally I was in this loop of many of my fears when you posted this. I had to send the link to a friend to let him understand how my mind works when I’m in the centre of a fear filled storm. I identified with it so closely. It felt like you wrote it to help me out when I was so down unable to make myself understood.

        Thank You Matthew. You have no idea how much this poem has helped me.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I am so happy for your feedback. I am glad it speaks to you.
        I wanted to express the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to fear. I have been told I want to bring people down to my level, that when there is too much joy I tend to withdraw or input pessimism.
        I now see I did this because I assumed pain and fear and disappointment are my natural lots in life, and when I am not aware of the sources of the pain and fear (and therefore, unable to control the sources and make sure the disaster is not so huge), I get highly anxious. I tend to bring everything down, slow it all down, so that it is at my level, and thus under my control.
        The paradox, and the self-fulfilling nature of this trait, is that I actually end up creating the pain and disappointment all around by controlling and suffocating and manipulating the people and environment around me.
        Then I say ‘see, I told you, I suffer from pain, my fears are justified’. And the cycle continues.

        Thanks for writing me. It has been too long!

        Liked by 1 person

      3. It’s uncanny Matthew. How you expressed my struggle with pain and fear so lucidly. It’s like you know me like you know yourself.

        I had to send screenshots of this to the man I love deeply. Because to the both of us this is not the first relationship. We have been failures on that end. And when we realized how deep our love is we became jittery and fear filled our entire beings. And we were trying to drift apart from each other! It’s when you posted the poem. And I had to be the first one to see light and get hold of him before we sank our own boat.

        Thank you will not be enough. But Thank you Matthew. Thank you. This man means everything to me and I couldn’t have afforded to lose him. Thank you for the words at the right time.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. It means a lot to hear your story. I really hope my simple words could help.

        Liked by 1 person

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