The Art of Falling

I beg you to leave

Like a child on a swing,

Voice going higher and higher as I begin to scream,

“Please!

I don’t want to come down.”

But I do

The body I’m bound to,

Which feels not entirely my own

Comes tumbling in a two-step stumble—

An elongated fall that hovers in a limbo of fear

And as too thin skin collides with rough tension there’s peeling.

No rhyme or reason,

Just peeling

As layer upon layer is stripped away,

And all I can say is, “please go away!”

Because you make me believe that a better world

Is a world without me—

And as that belief strikes an exposed nerve,

I begin to agree.

So please,

Just leave.