no longer in poetry

I’m no longer afraid of flying
oh, of course, it still bothers me
all the security theater that does nothing
the seats all designed for some human being
a foot shorter and a hundred-forty less pounds
the bleary soft-shoe shuffling between flights
the mediocre over-priced food
all of that still bothers me
but I’m no longer afraid of it
and it scares me
it scares me that I’m not scared

recently a close friend asked me
if all I’ve been through in the last year
my father’s death and a cousin’s death
the death of a few friends of the family
illness and suffering all over the tree
if it had changed my outlook on mortality
because when I was younger I died in my dreams
died just about every other evening
woke up screaming in terrible fear
couldn’t fall asleep sometimes
in the terror of not waking up
he wondered if maybe this last year
brought me more at peace with it all
it has but maybe not in a healthy way

I am less afraid of death now
but not in some new-age peace with it
or courageous acceptance of what will be
I am less afraid because I’m tired
I still love life and I
still want to see more things
know more things love more people
but this has left me
faintly exhausted and
I can see where I may only be able to
take forty or fifty more years of all
this grief and loss of the best things
the effort spent beginning it all again
I can see now how later in life
one could just be worn out
so in that sense, yes
I am less afraid of death
but not in a healthy way

on the plane back from seeing my brother
on the other side of this continent
I wasn’t white-knuckling it there
I wasn’t imagining the floor beneath me
disintegrating every half hour or so
and the mile high fall to my death
as I couldn’t block out of my head
when I was twenty, when I was thirty
I was just too goddamned tired for that
my back and my legs hurt too much
there were connections to come and
I knew that I wasn’t going to sleep
I just asked for a coffee
put on a movie I’d already seen
tried to zone out from the pain
I am no longer afraid of flying
and that lack of fear
scares the hell out of me

they say that the fear
of not being afraid is
the textbook definition
of being a neurotic and
I say
they’re right