Fear Poem by Lily Ives

Fear,
You're both my friend and my foe.
You keep me alive,
And you prevent me from living my best life.
With you, I'm neither dead nor fully alive,
but stuck in suspended animation watching decay
claim the people and places that I love.
You wind me up in the face of danger,
and wind me down in the state of pleasure.
In times of good fortune,
you'd whisper "it's too good to be true, "
and in times of failure,
you'd force me to withdraw into a cocoon.
I barely notice the world on the outside,
And I rarely know who dictates my world from the inside.
My mind is a labyrinth dotted with lies and half-truths.
Who am I? I cannot answer.
Where do I dwell along these fleeting and ghostly hours?
Death is such a long time.
I want to be like a star,
unafraid to shine brightly before exploding or fizzling out.
I don't belong to myself,
I am the boundless universe -
Yet you rob me of the joy and freedom to fade out of this form,
by keeping me frozen and sleepless at the thought of losing it all.