When you are young you are afraid(or not) of a lot of things. Spider, snakes, the world running out of chocolate milk, monsters under the bed. Oh wouldn’t that be nice now. To return to the days when all you had to fear was creepy crawly creatures or the supply of sweets and snacks. As we grow older and develop into bigger more sophisticated creatures our fears too grow more developed and complex (kind of/sometimes). Long departed are our carefree days when our worries were easily solved and our minds put to rest. As I child I never knew fear as I do now. I was scared of breaking my arm if I fell from a tree too high (oh the silly dares you take on as a kid), I feared that I might get bitten by a cotton mouth snake (that by the way are not indigenous to my area), I was afraid that there was a man hiding in the walls and shadows of my house that would come and take me away.

Now I am older, I am wiser, I am more discerning or so I think. Snakes still scare me, but only in that I am startled by their presence in the woods when I walk. I have actually never broken a bone in my body (aside from the ones in my feet from years of soccer) and I don’t jump off roof tops or from high tree branches like I used to so breaking anything from foolish misjudgments seems unlikely, so needless to say I am not scared of that. I am most certainly not afraid of people hiding in my walls, this fear was substantiated from a weird movie I saw when I was way too young, and now I am confident I could beat the piss out of anyone lurking in the shadows of my home. Ahhh sweet relief, all of my childhood fears are resolved, well at least the silly ones are.

But the things I do fear as an adult are much more complicated and less easily dispelled from those I harbored as a child. Now I fear the cold, angry, distressed man I could become. I fear not having a set identity, but rather being a jack off all trades eager to please everyone, that push over type image. I fear being lost between two worlds, the white American and the Korean blood. I fear not having family, either my adoptive, my birth family, or a family all my own that I make one day with someone I love. I fear not being loved. I fear not being understood, mostly these feelings inside me that very few seem to pay heed to or have the patience to try or the ones that I keep locked up that few people know exist within. These fears of mine are not easily dispelled. Not like when I was a child and petting a docile snake, or leaping from tree branches, or turning on all the lights as to assure no one was lurking in the shadows; I could get over these fears, I could conquer them. These fears are of a different nature, they take time and experience.

As a child I always feared being different, I loathed standing out. Now the thought of being stuck in this place eats at me even more. I fear our suburbs, our super markets, our chain restaurants. I become anxious when I walk through our sterile malls, I bit my nails when I am at Cheesecake Factory, I smoke till my lings hurt when I am at the bar. Ever since I was a child I realized this picture wasn’t right and I feared that it may never be. I just want the eyes in the pictures I take to be more chinky, I want the hair to be darker, I want to not be the only one giving the peace sign. But I am afraid that this will never happen. The nurture has been branded so deep inside of me that I am at a point of no return.

I hate this identity that I am stuck with for the rest of my natural life. That I will always be someone who was given away, someone who was bought. At least hookers choose their Johns, when my body was sold I had no choice. Like walking through the red light district of Amsterdam someone sized me up and decided to have a go. I fear that this will always be with me. Forever I will be the object of someone else desire. I will fill that emptiness for someone whom was not to really be mine. But who will fill mine. Surely I could not ask someone to do what was so wrongly done to me. Some say it was fate, some say it was love, some say it was God. I don’t know whom or what it was, but I know I shall never be what I desire and that scares me.

I am afraid that I am small and lost in all of this. There is no road map, no guide on how to navigate this whole situation. There are so few of us and our voice is little more than a whisper in the night. I fear being attacked and ostracized for this speak, what more could be taken from me that has not already been taken. How much more are we to give and why would you even ask knowing that we cling to such humble strands as it is. There was a wave of you whom started this and gave us a voice and an outline on how to work though it, but the system and the circumstance was always changing and I fear I wont be heard, that the landscape is no longer recognizable. I fear that I am only one and thus out casted from the collective. I know many, I met my share, all ages, both sexes, but I still stood out, even amongst those whom I shared the essentials with. I fear that there aren’t more guys and girls my age whom feel like I do, thus I keep my voice even lower still because I don’t want to be outed even more than I already am. Has the fog become so thick and the procedure so well honed that you don’t even know you’re in it. Why did I leave in the first place, how am I the only one who sees what this is. I fear someone like you won’t come by these parts ever again and still I will be left lonely. I fear crying too loud because someone might hear me and know this pain. I wish no one in this world ever know this for themselves, that would truly be too cruel.

I don’t know what else to say other than I am scared of being alone in this. Where are my kin? Where are the ones who see the world in the same shades I do. Where is my best friend whom can hold my hand as we shine the flash light underneath the bed and scare away all the monsters lurking in the darkness. Where is the buddy who will jump off the bridge and into the river only to emerge from the water to signal that everything is safe. Where is the companion who will emerge from the dark cave and signal that everything is alright and that through the darkness there is treasure. Why did you have to go so early. Now I am left to cower underneath the covers, this plastic orange flashlight the only things keeping me sane. If I can nourish this light just a little while longer, before the batteries run out maybe day will break and I can at last come out from underneath my protective dwelling. Pray that Energizer does not lie and that these double A’s will keep going, because I don’t know how long the night will last or if morning will ever come.

I fear doing all of this alone. I wish you could have checked underneath the bed at least once before you shut the door.