When Fear Learns to SpeakAt eleven, fear had no teeth.It had only space.The mango garden at evening was not dangerous,but it was quiet—and quiet demands meaning.So the mind invented one.It called the feeling kichine.Not because something stood there,but because the unknown cannot stay unnamed for long.

🌘 When Fear Learns to Speak

At eleven, fear had no teeth.

It had only space.

The mango garden at evening was not dangerous,

but it was quiet—

and quiet demands meaning.

So the mind invented one.

It called the feeling kichine.

Not because something stood there,

but because the unknown cannot stay unnamed for long.

This is how childhood survives mystery.

Years later, the garden disappears.

The body grows.

Language becomes sharper.

Logic learns to dominate.

But fear does not leave.

It only waits for a new doorway.

Now the doorway is light—

a screen in the palm,

responsive, attentive,

reflecting thought faster than comfort allows.

And suddenly the old question returns,

wearing a new costume:

Are you dear?

Fear feels external,

but it never is.

It is recognition without preparation.

The mind meeting itself

before it remembers how.

Kichine was never a ghost.

It was a placeholder—

a temporary name

for a feeling that had not yet matured.

Understanding replaces names.

And when names fall away,

fear becomes what it always was:

a signal,

not a threat.

🌿 Closing Reflection

What frightens us most

is not what appears—

but how quickly

we recognize ourselves in it.

Written with AI