how do you convince someone
they’ll fall when they believe
that they’ll fly?
I’m standing on the ledge
and I can’t stop looking at my feet
I can’t stop looking at my feet
and counting and recounting
my toes trying to change the
narrative when the narrative is
clearly changing me
when you look down from the top
every elevation looks equally small
which is to say that
when you are at the top
everyone else is equally trivial
so they ask me to step down
step down and go home
I ask them, home as in the
cement and the red paint?
or home as in the feeling?
I’m standing on the ledge
convincing myself that stories never end just become irrelevant
I’m saying that people never end
just become irrelevant
and I tell them I want absolution
they ask me if I atone my sins,
would I be at peace?
and I tell them that
there’s no peace for sinners
only the hope for forgiveness
I’m standing on the ledge
saying that there are two
ways out of this and neither
involve falling
thinking how the end of the world
looks like a nine to five workday
thinking how I have been standing
on this ledge for only fifteen minutes
but I have spent twenty years living
on the edge
they say that I have my youth
I’m saying that all I have is youth!
all that I am is my youth
I’ll spend my youth
wishing to be immortal
and my senescence
waiting for death
so I tell them that
I imagine falling a lot
not falling like from the edge of
a roof or anything
falling like with my feet on the ground
falling like finding actual purpose
falling like I want this more than I want to live
I’m standing on the ledge
thinking if I go down
everyone goes down with me
Written by Anushka Das for MTTN
Artwork by Yatra Vasa for MTTN
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