Fear

The phone inside my pocket

doesn’t frighten me at all.

The reels from Sola’s surface—

its flares they say

can disable our power grids,

leaving us in the gloom

to grope for switches.

A million Sudanese

are bared before me in

their bones, flies which

orbit their skulls like satellites.

I’m now desensitized.

Yesterday it was Yemen;

the Palestinians and

their bulldozed olive groves.

Show me a terror

I haven’t seen. The Exorcist’s 

spider walk. Someone

who’s been bathing in

the Bates Motel.

Migrants herded jointly

like the Juden of ’38—

Neville boasting peace

had surely come.

Nothing on my iPhone

makes me flinch.

The asteroid which I’ve heard

is on its way; that 9.4

is coming to California;

that when Yellowstone blows its

stack there’s hell to pay.

I have to speak in gestures.

Meta’s been listening in

to absolutely everything I

think. They want to “personalize

my experience”—

for ads I won’t resist—

like the pull of what’s

too horrible

to turn away from, the cyclist on the

curb with splaying limbs.

Grok is my BFF. Will comfort me if

I’m being suicidal. But gulping

down the Xanax

means I’m totally petrified.

And none of this instills

the slightest tremor.

It’s the rotary

in the kitchen

that gave me willies.

Its wire in the wall

which somehow led

to my crush’s number; a 7-

headed monster that—if dialed—

would sear my fragile nerves,

fretting someone

would hear me asking

her to Terminator 2—

a heaving of my breath, clattering

of my molars, the click

from her receiver

letting me know my

world has ended this

time for good.

Andreas Gripp

December 15, 2025

RF Photo