He was never able to risk rejection. <br />His hand would freeze <br />dialing a girl’s phone number. <br />Traffic of nerves jammed all intersections. <br />Even an emergency vehicle carrying him <br />to receive necessary Oxygen of Fresh Life <br />could not get through anxiety’s clogged highways. <br />Everything seemed to take a detour <br />back to that room, that day, with mother. <br /> <br />And now that it was all long done, <br />now that he could even look back <br />on efforts spun out over adult decades, <br />he still threw up his hands. <br />Effort had never been able to break that deadlock. <br />It was like a fairy tale in which, when the hero <br />gets stronger, the monster does, too. <br /> <br />Yes, the things he'd shrunk from reaching out for <br />had finally come to him, in other ways. <br />There was magic in that, too. <br />Still, he wondered, sometimes, <br />if it was really the same.<br /><br />Max Reif<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-coward/
