The King and the Charlatan

.I wouldn’t ask you to write a letter to your biggest fear and not do it myself.

This is my response to the prompt I shared with the community this week.

Dear fear,
You were the king,
governing my life,
asking me to bow before you.

I was the charlatan,
defying surrender.

Gentle but sharp,
like the decisive
yet delicate strokes
of a painter across a canvas,
drawing a thin ribbon of sunshine
with sunflowers turning their faces toward it,
while I faced the opposite,
ungrateful like winter arriving without warning,
clouds pulling their curtains.

The night endlessly stretching
like empty bottles,
forcing me to swallow
each of my dreams with the next sip,
like the air leaving the room around me.

A quiet war,
your voice piercing my ears,
cutting my skin
like paper,
forcing me to take over the stage,
the pat on the back
that I’m missing.

My chest expanded and stayed there,
facing the window,
scratching my palms.

I sat on the same black couch,
with a blanket covered in dust,
not allowing even Persephone’s garden
to stir my wonder.

Fear robbed me of any other choices
but to perform.

The identities I polished,
the loves I feared losing,
even the pain I secretly carried like a badge,
like a collection of shells I gathered on a beach.

I lined them up
and called them my own.

The tides arrived.
Waves swept the shells back into the sea,
sometimes gently,
sometimes all at once.

What remained was an open horizon,
an unclenched fist,
a chance to walk barefoot.

Fear spoke to me:

“Are you ready to stay?
To simply be?”

Compelling me to strip away
every piece of armour I wore.

I let it all be seen.
My heart.
My illness.
My fear.
My softness.

7:00 AM the next day.

I will meet you
at every door I try to walk through,
in every mirror I used to avoid.

Now we are equals.

Copyright © 2026 İmge Tekniker. All rights reserved.

Authors note:

If you enjoy pieces like this, I also create song-poems on request for paid subscribers, and sometimes videos like the one above, tailored to the themes you choose working with the same care, effort and presence that I use in my own work.

Thanks for reading! If my words touched you let them travel.