I already let you fall once. This is another green world.
I had fallen but I stood, on shaking, hesitant legs, but I stood nonetheless, on greener ground. It was the fall that brought me here. This place where I said I could ‘find myself’, the ‘real me’. I notice how the line between delusional and optimistic blurs in a sickly comical way. The more I try to distinguish what is real and what is a figment of my clustered mind, the more that line flickers and fades.
I’ll help you grow
Wings that won’t burn in the hot sun
I know that part of me is there; the part that is brave and unwavering in its quest towards my best self, the one that burns as bright as that flaming ball in the sky. It would be nice if it could dwell a bit closer to the surface, rather than burrowing into the deep and twisty wells of self-doubt and fear. The tunnels that I once ran rampant through, now only echo distant but familiar footsteps. Their sound is eery, far away but still audible, close enough as if to say – you have made great strides, leaving the general comfort of this dark place, but it hasn’t vanished, it’s cool penetrating grip is only a slip away. Wait, stop! I am not some mythological son. I am not doomed to fly too close to the sun, only to find myself tragically falling, burning in a dripping net of my own melting wax. True, I am falling but this can’t be the end..
Hey, girl, do you feel like you just ain’t worth saving?
More times than you know I feel the same thing.
I won’t say it’s easy to be happy, when virtually everything is going right, but it is undeniably easier. I’m aware that I really have no grounds for complaint but that momentary whiney child inside me wins out. Just as things were getting easy, comfortable, agreeable you yank the proverbial rug from under my feet. Boo-fucking-hoo. A not-so-subtle sign that maybe things were getting too easy, is it possible in my blissful state I was becoming ignorant of my own stagnation? Peacefully meandering down a river to nowhere on a raft of complacency. Maybe I was, fuck it was sweet. But now I’ve started to teeter, to falter, and I can’t take your hand, the one you willingly extend in an effort to help me. It’s a genuine offer of simple salvation but my own stubbornness (or is it fear) makes me incapable of reaching out. So, I reach in. I don’t gently glide inside to a place of warmth and safety. I punch through the outer walls, twisting and tearing as I plunge deeper, desperate to find that place, that place of peace and strength buried but burning.
You think this is too much to believe in
If you’re scared, look below, I’ll be right there
I anxiously tug at the skin around my chipped and peeling nails. Soft light streams in through the filter of natural light blinds, or whatever the hell they’re called. I notice drops of water on the floor by my feet, count them, one, two, three. Where did they come from, do I clean them up, how long before they simply evaporate and do the work for me? My mind is making a feeble attempt at distracting me from the loud calls of my soul. This is NOT too much to believe in. You ARE worth saving. You ARE scared. But you have been here before, take comfort in the familiarity of it, you’re only wading in the shallows of self-doubt, you have not plunged to the dank bottom. SNAP! I take a deep breath (how long has it been since I’ve taken a breath?); I take another, listening to the soft, strong flow of it, watch it flutter the stray hairs that have escaped their elastic captor.
Was it you that said the world could drown swiftly
Were you braver than you think?
I peel off the strip of skin that I had been gnawing at. It doesn’t hurt, it was dead anyway. Everything can be drowned out, nothing is really permanent. A thought that once terrified me is now the thing that soothes me, steadies the nervous creature inside. We must not fear the darkness, simply because we have known it. It’s the knowing it that makes us stronger, more appreciative of the light. As we begin to understand the light, appreciate it, crave it, seek it out, we must not fear finding it. Have faith that when the time comes you will be well equipped to behold such power. You will not implode into a dripping, melting mess. Nor will you burst into fearful flame. That light is a part of you, me, him, her, them, brother and sister, parent and child. My legs are slightly less shaky, my breath less rattled. I am here. The rug I had grown so fond of standing upon is not. Big fucking deal. Lessons, reminders, growth, it’s all painful but now I know – I am meant for more than comfort, ease, blissful ignorance. What once was, will soon be no more. I’ve been tested, I tripped and I faltered, but now I see a new path unfolding beneath me. It’s time to continue the journey, to reaffirm my belief in myself. Growing pains be damned. You don’t get anywhere real upon gilded wings, majestic and lavish, supple in all their amenities. You crawl and trip, stagger, wander, claw, tip-toe, skip and trip again, but in the end you’ll fly. And it’s always so worth it in the end…
We rise in feathers and wax, child
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