“There is no fear in love; but perfect love
              casteth out fear; because fear hath torment.
              He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”
”

                                                                   — 1 John 4:18-19a  

It has been said that courage is not lack of fear, but rather
seeing the reason for fear, recognizing the necessity for action,
and then choosing one must face it
anyway.

             I say to you:   I am not arguing against such a thought
            but I am claiming there will come a day when trust
            is made complete—and when trust is made complete,
            Fear will stand like a beggar on your doorstep,
            bones visible through sallow flesh of its body,
            and you will be too busy to answer the door.

Even so, Lord, that day is not today.
Today, I do feel fear.  Today I trust,
and I speak that trust, I claim that
trust, but Fear sits fat on the couch
of my chest, Styrofoam and cellophane
accoutrement of cast-off, fast food
receptacles making a wasteland
of my spiritual living space,

his legs stretched out in geometric rays
from his bloated backside to the tips
of his swollen feet, taking up the surface
of the coffee table.  He snores—his apneic
reverberations trembling the inner cavities
of my torso, my mind, my heart.

             I type and the words won’t come
because there is no room for anything else
when I see the evidence piling up in his
detritus, rotting, stinking, showing me
the life I so believed in breaking
apart, falling to the ground, shattering
around me.

That day will come, but it is not today
so I pray and I confess my state
and I pray for today, pray for it to be
today, pray for his eviction from today,
pray for today not to linger,

forever
a day
away.