During the festival-event
for my current State
I was found
on a porch with
two women. When I cracked
the Redbook
on the stool to my
left, “Men’s Biggest
Fears,” the heading read
itself. The women
were instantly curious
perchance I was
one of the Men
meant, and might I be
able to assess the validity
of the claims from a ghost
writer. “Am I the Best
You’ve ever had?” or “Will I
Ever get a gut?” was
the crux. I explained

the universality of them
is no-thing too tangible.
So the women turned fronts
to me and asked as if I am
an archetype, “Andrew,
then what is your biggest fear?”

I tried to swallow down
the Thing
I knew my answer
must contain, but instead
it came crawling out like a
hairy Tarantula, gagging me with
its squirmy little legs.

“To Know
I Am
Understood,”
[of course the fear
would need a not after the I Am]
was the what I’d never vocalized
loudly like this, thinking
the saying would lead away
from a solution to the Thing.

So came a second-level re-
daction of a less abstract “To be
perceived correctly,” which
actually means that of Great
value to me is a congruency
of the Theirs to the Mine.

Then we could
each nod-agree, since
sitting on a porch, the sun
setting said we were fifty [million] miles
from somewhere we had
to Be.