Fear finds you at night.

It rushes under your skin

and makes its way towards your heart

where it constricts,

slowly strengthening its grip

like a thread tied around a finger-

pulling, making it ache

until the finger pulsates.

The tip, increasing in size,

turns purple.

So the heart

caught in fear

pounds upon the door of sleep

and awakens you, the dreamer

who, finding yourself cold and wet,

must now decide whether or not to rise.

You must decide

whether you should try to rest in a dream where fear waits outside the gates of sleep

or awake to a nightmare

or, perhaps, awake to life.

You get up-coffee, face, teeth, dress.

You walk outside into a gray October morning,

quiet-but for the crickets chirping, singing their desperate song,

hoping that if their voices continue so too will they

or, if the song is beautiful enough, at least the memory of them will remain.

You see that the trees are losing their leaves

and you catch sight of one golden maple leaf

floating to the ground,

the curtain closing upon its final act.

You listen and -in the silence of the early morning-

you hear it land.

You feel the closure

that comes from hearing a last breath,

that comes from bearing witness to one reach his final resting place.

And you feel strong.

You are alive.

Still alive.