Musings of a Brave Coward
on doing things scared
I have no idea what this week’s newsletter even is. I feel stretched thin and my sleep schedule has been obliterated. I have made commitments and they have come to collect their dues. I wrote a poem about burnout currently titled Being the Sun. It resides at the bottom of this page.
I want to write about doing things scared. Doing things tired and doing things frustrated. I guess what I want to write about is doing unbearable work in order to get to the light at the end of it.
You know that moment before you jump from the mouth of a cave into sparkling blue waters. How the light refracts and glitters across the rippling waves. When blood rushes to your ears, your heart tries its best to beat itself out of your ribcage. At that moment you decide whether you will jump into the waters and find new friends/experiences/passions or stay trapped standing on the rock, a known but static position.
Of course, no one can stay stuck on some rock forever. Eventually, you have to get down just using the not-so-fun way. You will meet the people who jumped and see their adrenaline-flushed smiles and feel a pang of regret, why wasn’t I brave enough to jump? It’s funny what fear can do to a person. How it’s a mixture of both paralyzed indecision and almost insanity. I am well acquainted with my fears.
I believe myself to be a coward. There will always be a part of me who is terrified of what is new or unknown. I am at peace with the knowledge that I will never be rid of fear, so instead I have started walking with it. I get used to its sensation; I get used to my reactions. I am full of fear, a shaking mess of a person, but I have come to recognize it and listen to what it’s trying to tell me. Fear is just my past self trying to protect me from known hurts, and I cannot help but love her for it. We’ve become such dear friends.
I am learning to jump into cave mouths now with a little less friction. I’m still very much scared, even this newsletter is a terrifying jump I make every time I hit the publish button. The voices are loud saying something like what if I can’t actually write, or what if people lose interest. There is fear when you are jumping into the unknown, but I have hope that there is also something really beautiful when you finally get out of the waters.
I know it’s Valentine’s Day and this newsletter isn’t the least bit romantic. So I have compensated by sharing some of my poetry from my archives.
Hope you befriend your fears this week,
Dhan xx
SOME PERSONAL POETRY
On Burnout
Title: Being the Sun
It must be exhausting
being the sun
to rise everyday
to always share your light
how every creature you touch
gains some form of life
while you keep burning yourself
a never-ending fire light
is it exhausting being the center of the solar system
the anchor of all the planets
the pull of your own gravitational force
pulling all of them in
as they circle you constantly
always surrounded by an audience of planets and comets
you are a star in this endless dark universe
a yellow dwarf
smaller than most
if I were you
I think I’d be waiting for the ice of a blackhole
for the cold to be too much
for it to be too wide it siphons all my heat
at the end maybe I might finally find
peace
On Love
Title: Being Land
I’ve never had this before, not once have I experienced feeling like
someone has planted a warmer in my chest
Usually I live in a space of constant almosts
almost happy, almost giddy, and almost like a high
from the fumes of obsession and push and pulls
the insane abundance of affection turns into a lack of attention
in the sidelines, I learned how to beg for its scraps
but this, oh my, why does this not feel like a rollercoaster on a winter night
no adrenaline highs for my junkie heart
just a soft quiet, a buzz in the wind, the background noise of knowing
here we lie side by side, wound by wound, finally seeing
On Romance
Title: Call Me Darling One More Time 🔪
call me darling one more time
and watch me melt into a puddle of
overwhelmed glee
as i feel the warm intimacy of rare connections
call me baby one more time
and feel my heart race as it tries to jumps out
of my ribcage
feel the rush of the pink in my cheeks as you hold me
call me angel one more time
and see all the walls i built for years crumble like
sand castles swallowed up
by waves in the beach, melting like ice on a sunny day
call me love one more time
just once more, whisper it to my ear
and have the audacity to mean it with your whole chest
say it, one more time, call me my love again