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Image by Nagara Oyodo

Isn't it Scary

By Alyssa Dodson

Isn’t it scary?

That it’s 6:38pm on a Sunday,

And my roommate and I split the cost of furniture,

And I still haven’t done any homework,

But I am not dead yet?

 

Isn’t it scary?

That my best friend’s father walked away, 

And that’s probably for the best,

While another’s died,

And I know she would do anything to have let him stay?

 

Isn’t it scary?

That my childhood dog has been dead for two years,

And I still think about lying beside him on the floor, 

Scared of nothing

yet.

Or that his eyes were looking at mine when they went blank,

And since then every dog I see makes me feel just a little bit empty?

 

Isn’t it scary?

That I have never known a world without my Papa in it,

And now he is dead too, 

And I am still here 

With only photographs and memories and a marble stone in the ground?

 

Isn’t it scary?

That you can never escape your own body

And your thoughts run on no matter where you tell them to go

And no matter how hard you try to tell them,

No one else will ever know what they are,

But you still try like hell to be known

Anyway?

 

Isn’t it scary?

That there is nothing between me and the oncoming traffic

Except the agreement between me and the other drivers,

Their choice and my own not to pull the wheel,

And the voice inside that tells me the opposite?

 

Isn’t it scary?

That I am not afraid of death, 

But I am terrified of other people dying?

Isn’t it scary that love is everything we do,

And it’s the thing that makes everything else hurt?

Isn’t it scary that we’re alive?

Isn’t it scary that we keep trying?

That we keep going?

Keep living?

Isn’t it scary that no matter what, 

We can never escape the thing 

That is scariest of all:

We will love, and we will love, and we will love, 

And that is terrifying. 

Isn’t it scary?

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