Page 106 - North Star Magazine 2022

Thanatophobia
I catch myself thinking,
more often than not,
of the many things that could kill me
if I were careless, or hopeless
or just plain unlucky.
I drift down the highway lost
on the roads of my own imagination
and think of the semi passing,
how it would smash into me
and I would die
either in an instant or in pain.
I imagine cancer racing to infect
every inch of my body
no symptoms, no warning
until I collapse.
They’d call me a hero, a warrior
as I lost the war I didn’t know
I was waging.
I dream of murderers setting their sights burglars, rapists, petty thieves and criminals being a target for something big or small,
all the ways that I could die fighting
all the things that could go wrong.
I think of dying way past my prime
aging into a relic of a forgotten past
lost to the twists and turns of tumultuous time or dying far too soon, still young and eager
a tragedy, a martyr
of whatever demographic I died for.
I am afraid of death, as often as I dream-- the ceasing of my consciousness
the end of my existence
as if my spark of life fell asleep
and never woke up.
Though if I died, as I imagine all the time
I would never know.
-River Ashe