My Fears... Poem by Samah Khan

I am not afraid of dying,
But ' twould be no falsehood to say I am afraid of death;
This is my life, this is the irony, the satire-
I can be nude and plain in the concluding embrace of death,
Yet I cannot don the funeral attire.

I am not afraid of committing sin,
Yet, I am afraid of forgiving those who err (and then admit) -
I condemn hypocrisy and all that lies within,
But yet I fear I am a hypocrite.

I am not afraid of the flags in a funeral procession,
As long as they drag behind a coffin within which it is I who is sheathed;
But if I were the driver of the hearse of another,
The flags would signal the toll of one's victory and the silence of another's defeat.