The Edge

There is an edge within me.

I saw it once two Decembers ago

When my lips were blue and my fingernails

Were hardened by cold, purple like ink stains on warped wooden desktop.

The edge was cold, but maybe it was just winter.

The edge was

The edge was

The edge was like the broken record of a tinny memory.

Like ducks circling your temples, bobbling up

and down like thought balloons, caught balloons secured by

the string of a kite

Slip the knot between forefinger and thumb to pull tight with numb limbs and lips but not from

Novocain, not cocaine, feeling the membrane of the

Parchment layers, onionskin eyelids,

If you cut them off you could pin them like butterfly wings.

Hold them up to the sun and admire the glow

Admire the different perspective

A collective of things that can’t shed any more tears.

The edge wasn’t warm, but as long as you stayed on your side (the side you started on) the edge was comfortable.

The edge was not a ledge for you to dangle your feet over, shoes dripping off the toes of feet, secure in the fact that it would take more than a passing breeze for you to try your hand at flying.

The edge was for remembering embers burning

Smoldering coals of bonfire I was conned

Into pretending nothing was wrong when we sat holding hands

My arm, a leash, connected to my heart which

I imagined

Would stop beating with your leaving,

if I stuck my hand through the ribcage, extracted the organ, would it feel like

anything? What would nothing feel like?

The edge is walking, inching towards dark abyss, cliff, gully, chasm, valley, volcanic

rock bottom and sinking without stopping you

                                                                                                Leap.

The edge is loving            leaving             begging            pleading            following             

hollowing out the inside of your cheek with teeth biting,

blood filling mouth

with a good source of irony, not knowing

what you’ll find

when you leap.

When you finally leapt, wept last tear, call it fear,

            The cold empties you pulling down

And sometimes your wings unfold, fully grown, you realize despite the cold

Your feathers needed airing out, the wind feels

Right to lick your cheeks, you might remember

How to speak clearly like the song of birds, to hear the meaning, not the words

But

Sometimes

            The wind is strong as you leap and when your body quakes

Your wings are not unfurled to fly, they aren’t strong enough to hold your weight,

            So they break.

The edge is after broken too, the unspoken, the tokens of kindness and wisdom, given to you like change from strangers, warding off danger with nothing but the will to smile still

            Beyond the hope of dodging consequence or one last dance or tragedy brought by happenstance.

The only thing I’ll say to you when standing on the edge poised, arms outstretched, lines of uncertainty

Call it fear of failing

Fear of falling

Fear of flailing

Fear of lies

Fear of flying, I’m dying to tell you

            That the only thing worse than the fall,

                        Is doing nothing at all.