Happenstance

I am terrified of when I will happen.
Not of what will happen to me, not
of what I must endure
but of what I am going to inflict
and affect.
I am going to happen to someone.
I want to happen hard and fast
and be lasting
but what if
I am soft like water
and happen like mist
without the hardness of rain
without its stinging insistence
what if I happen
fleetingly
like dew
like vapor
what if I don't happen at all?
What I know is that I can survive.
We default to survival, to endurance.
I am terrified not of defaulting
but of not happening --
of being embryonic
and unrealized.
and I am terrified of happening also
because I know
the effects
of being happened upon.
Perhaps the most terrifying of all
is living
with the intolerable pain
of paradoxical wishing.