My hip is pressed into a knotty spring mattress. Cheek scooped into a grey pillow. My skin feels slightly flushed. Despite the air starting to sigh with autumn’s cool breath, the room seems to have trapped the stifling summer heat inside. A phone on loudspeaker is held in my hand. My mum’s gentle voice ripples across the radio waves. She’s been reading a book. On another night I’d feel the corners of my eyes crinkle in mutual interest, but tonight my ears hear her words as nothing more than the wash of swell upon sand, and I sink further into silence.

A dark shape lies heavy on my chest. It’s pressing down like my hip into the mattress, scooping a hollow in my heart. I know it’s name, but loathe to name it.
To name it is to call it from it’s shadow and admit it into existence.
To name it is to reveal the purpled skin I’ve allowed it to leave under the clutching of its fingers.
To name it is to expose the crescent-shaped marks chiseled into its own arms, where I’ve returned its grasp, biting in with desperate fingernails.

The name falls out, whispered.

Fear.

Fear and I wrestle for the upper hand.
We circle each other like predator and prey, pacing with padded paws.
We play games like politicians in senate chambers. Bickering, baiting, belittling.
I try to hide behind it. It tries to expose me.
I try to expose it. It tries to hide me.

I’m feeling hidden. I’ve tucked myself under Fear’s arm, buried my face in its chest and it’s held me close. Happy, for now, to conceal me under the weight of its oppressive embrace.

With hip still pressed, heart still hollow, I murmur:

Mum, I’m going to go now.

She answers:

Are you going to write?

And with those words, there is something akin to the feeling of a head raising in response to a curious sound that sparks inside my hollowed heart.

Maybe I will … I think I might.

What will you write about?

The answer comes with unexpected confidence.
Like the stepping out of a darkened room into the full blaze of a blue-skied day.

Fear.

I won’t hide behind it, nor will I be hidden by it.
I sit up. I push the clutching, heavy mass away to arm’s length.
I let it strain against the palm of my hand.
I look straight in its belittling eyes, and dare it with my gaze:

Expose me.