That new year
It came over the horizon
All blazing and brazen as mid day sun
That’s how I saw it, anyway.
I hung my head to the side
Chewed my bottom lip a little
And closed an eye
To gauge full measure of. It.
Formidable, yes. Awe-full
Immense.
Seeming, initially
Much more than me.
It came uncloaked, unhidden, unyielding
Red streaked with flashes of warning
To be afraid.
Bottom lip chewed, eyes scrunched in wonder
It grew bolder, nearer but I was not afraid.
If it had come in tiny flashes
Small enough to nip my heels
It could have brought me down over time
Tiny bites could have
Tendon torn
Bled me dry
Made me stumble
Like it used to – fear of decades past
Lost in a conifer maze,
Murderer in a woods
Distorted skull in a figurine skirt no-one else saw, just me at night,
from the clutch of my duvet –
Those kinds of ankle-biting
Fears.
But it didn’t, it came
As a brazen monolith
So much so I forgot to fear
Caught in awe at how full it was
Crudely
Red streaked trying to make me afraid.
Blazen as mid day sun.
And so it compelled me
To close the other eye to it
and turn.
Away.