Scared

I'm scared.

Not 'girl' scared. Not spiders, or wasps. Not weight gain, or aging.

Not 'boy' scared. Not commitment, or losing face. Not hair loss, or impotence.

Not 'kid' scared. Not the dark, or bullies. Not maths tests, or detention.

Not 'phobia' scared. Not heights, or open spaces. Not snakes, or the number thirteen.

And not death. Certainly not death. Quite the opposite.

I'm scared of life.

Scared of the future, what it will bring and what I will become.

Scared of the past, and what it has made me.

And scared of the now, each day, each hour, each waking second. The inevitable ticking towards the fate that awaits us all in the end. The inescapable finality.

Each time I step outside the door, wondering if the cars speeding past me on the street are going fast enough. How much damage they would cause.

Each time I drive the car, knuckles tight to white on the wheel, resisting what is becoming an overwhelming urge to career into the next motorway bridge, the next 40-footer coming the other way.

I've caused pain to people, emotional pain that I never thought possible, never thought myself capable of. And what's worse is that it's been caused not through any malice but by being who I am.

I've caused pain to myself, physical pain that at times seems the only way to express the feelings inside that I can't understand and never have. Knuckles left bruised and bleeding, swollen to the point of not being able to even bend the fingers, let alone make the fist that enabled the release, smashed the wall, smeared the blood and flooded my mind with welcome pain.

Life inside the bubble of my mind is the only way. Cut off and detached from the reality of what's going on. So I seem distant, that's just me. So I seem cold, that's just me. That way I don't expose myself or anyone else to the hurt I inevitably cause.
And my brain feels numb, to the point of being an automaton.

And underlying it all, the mind-crippling but ever more certain belief that a world without me in it would somehow be a better place for everyone that my life has touched.

So I'm scared.......scared of what I'll do next.