The experience of fear is not an observer of it; he is fear itself, the very instrument of fear. <br />-J. Krishnamurti <br /> <br />In dreams I descend <br />into the cave of my past: <br />a child with a morgue-tag <br />on its toe, <br />the terrible metal squeaking <br />of the morgue-drawers, <br />& the chilly basement <br />& the slam of doors. <br /> <br />Or else I am setting up dreamhouse, <br />with the wife <br />of my second ex-husband. <br />She complains of him <br />with breaking sorrow- <br />& I comfort her. <br />(She only married him, it seems, for me). <br /> <br />Sometimes I wake up naked <br />in Beverly Hills- <br />the table set for ten, a formal dinner- <br />a studio chief on my left side, <br />a fabled actor on my right. <br />Across the table, <br />Greta Garbo, Scott Fitzgerald, <br />John F. Kennedy & Marilyn Monroe- <br /> <br />& I alone not properly dressed for dinner, <br />& besides unprepared <br />for the final exam, <br />in which our immortality <br />will be tested, <br />& one of us shall perish <br />as dessert. <br /> <br />Send parachutes & kisses! <br />Send them quick! <br />I am descending into the cave <br />of my own fear. <br />My feet are weighted <br />with the leg-irons of the past. <br />The elevator plummets <br />in the shaft. <br /> <br />trapped, trapped in the bowels <br />of my dream, <br />locked in the cellar <br />by myself the jailer. <br />Rats and spiders scuttle <br />through the coal bin. <br />I cower in the corner. <br /> <br />I am fear.<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/without-parachutes/
