Spinning in circles, I drill a hole
Through the concrete beneath my toes.
Never stopping to ask, “What if?”
Never looking beyond the gift.
Keen to all your little games,
It’s your pleasure to cause me pain.
Tortured days and nights with you,
No more meaning coming through.
Wishing all of it would end,
I make peace with foe or friend.
Will you give me your free hand?
Respect from you would be so grand.
Closed eyes hide steaming fury.
Muscles in shoulders tense.
Looking calm, so “what, me worry?”
Making a fist, no common sense.
Burning inside to rip your head off,
Crossing that line with a dangerous pitch,
You look behind and cautiously cough,
As you mumble to yourself, “you son of a bitch…”
Looking at me, if eyes could kill,
I would be dead in a hurry.
So, I stepped back and said to you,
“Chill, you have no reason to worry.”
Second chances come sometimes,
And I was hoping for mine now.
I would pay for all my crimes,
But did not want to know how.
“Let’s be friends,” I said with a grin.
“We don’t need to fight.”
So you relaxed, all said and done.
And these days we are tight.
Peter leapt off the cliff into complete darkness. His ears caught a phrase being screamed at him a second too late.
Suddenly Peter felt something catch him in mid air,
Something soft, with feathers and wings.
Is it a bird? Is it a human? It didn’t make sense. It tilted back so that it felt like it was climbing to a higher place.
Still holding on tight, Peter started to relax.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked.
No answer.
Finally the steep climb was over and the creature came to a slow stop and landed, laying Peter down in the grass. Peter couldn’t see much around him, as it was quite dark. He figured he was probably still far away from any people, as there were no lights to be seen anywhere. The moon was just a crescent, barely showing the trees and bushes around him.
“What were you trying to do up there, kill yourself? That is a drop of several hundred feet, with jagged rocks at the bottom.” It was a female voice.
“As far as what I was doing, that’s my business. Who are you, and where did you come from?” Peter shouted.
A flash of light appeared in front of the creature, revealing the face of a woman with short, blonde hair. Although she had wings on her back, the rest of her looked human. She held a round, glowing sphere in the palm of her hand.
“I am Leah, from the sky people. We live near that dangerous precipice you jumped off from a few minutes ago. Our home is in the caverns inside the mountains. I have seen you, over the last few nights, walk up to that cliff and stare out into the darkness, always at night, when there is nothing to see.”
“What do you care where I go or what I do?” Peter growled. “So what if I was trying to kill myself? What difference does it make to you?” Peter scowled at the flying woman, embarrassed that she had seen him go up there several times, and then, which was worse, when he did finally muster up the courage to jump, she interfered with his plans by saving his life. “Now,” Peter thought to himself, “not only am I still alive, but I suppose I am also indebted to this woman for saving me.”
“If you are worried about me telling someone what happened, you don’t have to worry,” Leah soothed. “I won’t tell a soul,” she smiled. “But you have to promise me one thing: that you will not try again.”
Stumbling along the sidewalk 