Shadow Hunting

I've hidden in you

A thousand dreams,

A thousand fears,

A thousand sadnesses,

And a thousand joys until

You became a mirror that showed my true self.

I loved that self, and I hated that self.

Your surface showed my weakness most clearly

because that's all I held onto:

My belief that I wasn't enough.

I've forgotten who I am.

I saw in you all the things I loved about me…

And I gave them to you.

I will not fear, except to fear losing myself.

I fear losing you. Me.

I fear.

I fear as fiercely as I love.  I lost. I feared. I lost.

My mind drifts to you often,

in the moments between breaths,

My mind traveled to you and didn't return.

I lost.

I lost all of Self in my fear

"I must not fear. 

Fear is the mind Killer. 

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration."

Between each breath, I died.

Between the breaths

I actualized,

My fears. 

My shadow became all that I saw.

I thought it was something I could hold onto.

Solid, concrete, well-established.

It drew me forward to my end.

"I will face my fear"

Of losing you,

Of losing me.

"I will permit it to pass over me and through me".

I keep breathing

The space between breaths gets shorter,

There is too much life, there are too few pauses.

There is, there is, there is…

Me.

"Where have you been, what happened to you?"

I tried to reach you but silence was my answer.

The only thing that remained was the silence,

The expectation of life,

And the many cuts.

I gave myself to that emptiness

Piece by piece,

Breath by breath,

Fear by fear.

A thousand cuts,

A small-death each time.

"And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see it's path."

I.

I.

I.

Gasp, space, obliteration.

"Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing."

I have created,

I have obliterated,

I have feared,

I have loved.

I have cried.

And in each tear,

"Only I will remain".

Author's Note: Italicized quotes are from Frank Herbert's "Dune".