I am not frightened of the dark; just the dangers and the monsters it conceals.

I am not frightened of heights, not even of falling; it is the landing that fills me with dread.

I am not frightened of strangers; but of allowing them close should they break my heart.

I am not frightened of dying; but to exist without living.

I am not frightened of solitude; though, loneliness is impossible to endure.

I have no phobias; all my fears have solid rationale.

I don't know the name of but what I fear is that I am the reason I will find myself alone

I fear it to the point that I have trouble sharing with people because I don't want them to say I'm more trouble than I'm worth. It's that clog in my throat when I'm talking to someone that keeps me from saying anything. It's what makes me worry that I come off as calculating because I don't say enough or I say too much.

Am I manipulating someone when I tell them how I feel? Will they only stay because they pity me? If so do I need to be stronger than I am so they stay? How long will it take before I break? I know to keep people you have to trust them but if I don't trust them quickly will they stay to earn my trust. How can I tell someone I trust you but I don't trust myself to be able to be whole and keep you. You like a part of me but can I trust you with all of me.

If you see all of me will you turn away. Do you only tell me what I want to hear? Am I pulling back because I need space or am I pulling back because I strangle myself with silence? How do I talk when I don't know how to say every word and question that has marked every ounce of love I have. I would give everything to someone I love but is everything that they want? Will my anxiety, doubt, and fear outweigh my good qualities if there are any? Will I make their struggle worse by sharing mine? Or it will it give them company?

Do they only want to be my friend because I share their pain? What do you see in me because I want to give that to you but I can't see it? Does my overthinking send me into a spiral you can't reach? Have I made myself unreachable because I can't just open up? Can I open up and hold back at the same time? Would it be better if I acted like I don't need them as much as I do? Should you need anyone or should I only want them?

How do I say I need someone without putting pressure on them to stay? Am I just projecting and what they actually want is for me to say I need them? How do I say all of this without seeming crazy or being misunderstood? Is the natural kind of crazy everyone understands or am I in the outside. I am happy alone but I don't want to be abandoned.

I am fine but I am not and I trust you but I don't trust myself so if I don't trust myself how can I be sure I trust you? I don't fear what happens after I tell someone something, I fear saying it in the first place. Once it's said it can't be taken back. It can be explained, excused, and reasoned but it can't be taken back.

I fear myself. I fear that I am my own worst enemy because I am. I know none of this is unique but it's what I fear and it's what I work against to keep it from holding me back. I don't always win but at least I don't always lose against myself.

It goes on and on till I feel like I'm going to puke.

I have very intense claustrophobia. So now I'm going to tell a dnd-esque opening to show you what it's like.

You walk into the room, and open your eyes. Immediately, your chest tightens up, and it is hard to breathe. You look at the room, and it seems to get smaller and smaller the longer you spend in the room. You sit down, and take up as little space as possible, but the ceiling just seems to crush you more and more. Nobody else is affected, but you feel like if you are in this place any longer, you might be crushed to death. You smell something off, and your throat hurts. You have thrown up all over yourself.

This is a little bit of what it's like, and I'm sure a lot of this is also Anxiety taking hold of me. So no, to answer a question y'all never asked, Anxiety is not fun, and neither is having a phobia.

When I was a child, a woman once told me that the human heart is capable of mustering approximately two billion beats before it dies. Before it expires.

On my twelfth Halloween, I tried to calculate my own expiration date. I waited until all was quiet and dark in the house and pressed a thumb to my wrist, counting the beats for a minute. After saying my BPM aloud to myself, I turned to look at the family calculator and burst into tears.

I am still much too afraid to do what I attempted at 12. I will never cease to be afraid.

Every time my mother embraces me--every time I hear her heartbeat through her grey cotton sweater, I am afraid.

Every time my father’s breath comes in a puff of wintertime fog, I am afraid.

Every time I love someone who will die, I am afraid.

Spiders and bugs

Anything that can crawl on your skin and make a home inside of you.

It would be the worst horror movie ever short lived.

You setting at your table about to eat your dinner. You feel this crawling sensations on both of your legs. You swipe your legs but nothing is their so you go back to eating your food. Listening to your music a bug falls in your food. You jump from the table look down and your house is full of bugs all kinds of bugs. You scream and die on the spot bugs are crawling all over you. You wake lift the covers and sigh lay back down and on your pillow there is a bug smiling at you.

I have a fear, it may be a common fear, but to me it’s the most terrifying of them all. My fear of heights or is it the fear of falling more accurately. The height makes me so light - headed, even a look at how high i am terrifies me that i have no choice, but to back away to a distance i feel safe, a distance where i cannot see the height. It’s my worst fear, i feel like running away if only i wasn’t so high up i would walk instead of run away to protect myself from harm and fear. If i could rid myself from the fear, the fear of acrophobia, then i could enjoy the sights and adventure in bliss like everyone else, to rid myself of my jealously for them.

Food. I hate food with a burning passion. But I also love food, but it has to be a specific kind, with a specific smell, a specific texture. Ever since I could think my mind has been plagued by overwhelming dread over nausea and the bone-chilling effects of being in the presence of a food smell I could not cope with. If someone in the same room as me eats tuna, or an egg, or chicken, or virtually anything, I must allow the room to air out until I can feel safe to return. It's so stupid, I know I have issues but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it, so I just hate food.

Cloth that moved going down my throat was what it felt like. Or atleast what I know it will feel like. I keep my mouth shut when I see them. Pull my shirt over my nose and ears. Moths and butterflies however big or small, I can’t be near them. Butterflies, they can feel love in way, did you know? Sucking blood, my blood, out of my body with a thin needle. Loving the taste of my human flesh. And moths, attracted to the glow of my phone outside at night. Repeatedly hitting against it. The velvet prick of its wings against my skin. Flecked with an unknown powder. Both. The unpredictable flight pattern. The paper thin wings . Legs and attenae, like thickest hair that moves. Two black eyes that have no ending.