Fear’s Ocean

I was afraid to go into the store;
masked men and women abuzz everywhere.
I with anxiety hosting the fear,
thinking that terror had gone from my life.

Many’s the time when at midnight it roared;
razor sharp teeth and long claws to incise.
Gripping me tight taking hold of my throat;
cruel is the night when the enemy comes.

How is it fear takes ahold at the store?
Safeguards in place I know masks are in use.
This is the virus upending the world;
much is the stress overtaking me now.

So in I walked taking hold of a cart;
I had no wipes though I was wearing gloves.
I walked apace keeping distance in mind;
(this social distancing new to us all.)

(Fear is the ice trickle chilling the spine;
  shopping so grave and no faces are shown.
  Eyes only—it like a strange Halloween;
  this is a zone in the twilight of day.)

It an ordeal up and down aisles quick;
there rose some steam fogging glasses no less.
We were all bandits command by bug;
hostages we in the pathogen’s rule.

Left brain or right brain anxiety lives;
yet I in struggle demanded it pause.
Getting in line then a tall man ahead;
he muttered, “Not too close;” I stood incensed.

Meeting the challenge as fear laughed with glee;
holding in check anxious devil for sure.
And that reminded me, though it a bitch,
I am the captain of my ship today.


32 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
4-22-20