Love Is Not Fear

Love Is Not Fear

All your life
you held yourself still—
a vessel brimming,
tilted by unseen hands.

One day
the vessel cracked.
Your scream
was not a scream at all
but molten fire,
splitting the earth
wide open.

And his smile—
that was the sharpest wound,
as though your breaking
was staged
for his delight.

The rivers of rage
that slept in you for years
rose up,
yet he mistook them
for a game.

Your room
tightened into a prison.
Doors, locks, splintered latches—
silent witnesses
that fear, too,
is a country
whose borders shift each day.

And love?
It kept changing shapes—
a song,
a chain,
a hand closing
around your throat.

Until one day you knew:
love’s other name
is never fear.

You rose—
like a bird
from a burning nest.

Now your lungs
hold air again.
Your words
are alive again.

And in their quiet flight
they carry only this:

Love
is not fear.