I know terror.
I have known it all my life,
and I tire of it.

I knew terror lying on the cold cement locked in the work shed just before Christmas the year I was three going on four. So precocious and imaginative, they said. So soon terrified that they did not believe me, I secretly packed a suitcase with my favorite and most treasured possessions, certain the angels would come to carry me back to God – even then I knew I belonged to God. I checked and double-checked the suitcase often, holding onto it through the years as a symbol of hope. I saw it the other day, up in the attic.

I knew terror in the pillow smashed over my face and held in place while… I don’t remember what happened that night when I was nine. Only that I could not breathe. And never again as easy. A Chicago heat wave and we had no air. Of course the heat must be getting to her. It’s got to be that.
 
I knew terror in the cold Kentucky night when I stood talking to a stranger, unable to remember how I had arrived ninety miles from home in the middle of the night. And I knew terror when I arrived home again to find what I found.

I knew terror when you, my friend, looked at me (or was it through me?) and told me I was no friend at all. And then when you looked at me (or was it into me?) and said nothing for so long, breaking my heart with your love.

I know terror when I think that I will not be enough, that you will be the last to deem me so and shove me out of your life. I have known terror reeling toward the hell of echoes and emptiness, endlessly falling toward that pit I know so well. My suitcase is always packed, but the angels - they seem so far away.