reckless

I didn't realize I was scared until someone called me courageous.

I hadn't even considered fear- i plowed a head, confident and with an unyielding sense of optimism. I assumed my vision and my passions were legit simply because i felt it-- i breathed it-- i knew it as it pulsated through my veins.

I knew my vision because it was my heart.

I saw no reason to fear it. To question it. to hide from it. It made sense to me, so I assumed it' make sense to everyone. I assumed that because it mattered to me, it'd matter to others. I shared my vision with the anti-capitalists, the Queer feminists, the anarchists, the jewish reconstructionists, the nuns, the homeless, the suburbans, the students, the intellects, the abused, the misused, the vegans, the freegans, the musicians, the hoarders, the artists, the farmers, the addicts, the neo-monastics, the Jesus Freaks and the atheists. I told them my vision. I invited them out. I showed them my heart and I waited. Waited for the afternoon where they'dall come together. All these contradicting identities in one space at one time-- for one reason-- a hunger for social change.
I did not see this act of sharing or invitation as a daring act of bravery, nor did I see it as a risk.

But then he said it.

he told me I was courageous.
He told me he didn't have the guts to dream what I dreamt and plan what i was planning.
and then it happened,
I felt fear for the first time throughout this whole thing. I felt a fear so deep and so real that it paralyzed me. it stompt on my breath until exhales became brief and painful. It swarmed through my mind, like venom, poisoning my thoughts and words. It found the home of my optimism and pillaged it. leaving me empty and without much hope or ambition. This fear became a heavy and oversized stifling jacket, I unwillingly wore in the hottest of weather.
Suddenly I began to question everything: my dreams, my politics, my voice-- this entire afternoon.
Suddenly I saw the cracks in my vision and from these cracks emerged a creeping darkness. A darkness that told me to give up/ To side with apathy. That I wasn't strong enough. A voice that reminded me daily that no one really gave a shit and that i was a fool for thinking they ever did. And that''s when the shame leaked through-when I thought of all the people I had opened up to, invited, craved to collide with, it occurred to me that not all of them shared my vision--would ever share my vision. or even cared about it.
I realized that my dreams had likely offended, angered and irritated many.
This daunting threat of judgment turned a simple act of dreaming into a dangerous act of vulnerability and risk.
I felt that risk and then I felt for the first time a need , a desperate need, to be brave.
A need to dream fearlessly and speak recklessly with passion untainted.
I never knew what courage was until I felt my own fears take hold.
I didn't realize I was scared, until my entire body and spirit ached to own the courage he said he saw in me.