This fear is a fear of losing
the velocity I’ve hoped
is myself,

of sacrificing a wild and industrial motion
to an uncertain
abyss in peaceful rapture.

What is youth but fighting peace with every muscle?

Does progress exist without a continuous leaning forward?
And what of my curiosity who contests
all comfort as I sit quietly?

I will not succumb to stillness,
I will not succumb to stillness, it says.

But
when stillness visits,
I daresay there is a deliciousness

that I now
allow myself to inhabit
for whole minutes at a time

before re-dosing myself with urgency.

Dear one, imagine we knew not of our own mortality–
what if we, like so many other creatures,
had not even the faintest idea?

How would be this day,
this question;

how would I do this quietude
aside from the ancient, yet unproven, rumor
that I am to die?

Julia Daye