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.