The Fall
He jumped from light to light,
Hair floating behind him like a ribbon,
Long and dark, clinging onto midnight,
Awaiting moonset, he travelled without a sound,
Footprints light and almost unseen
In the pure white snow, dreaming,
Forgetting he was treading on a thin beam,
Waltzing with the storm as if he was free.
Their voices twirled through the winter wind,
"Auden Grey!," they cried, "You cannot run forever!"
Yet he kept moving, leaving them far behind,
And soon they dwindled behind;
Silently, he smiled, jumping towards the sun,
Ignoring every fall back towards the earth,
The ropes around his heart undone,
He reached towards the warm threads.
Free to fly away, he seemed,
Drowning in the feathers of his wings,
One final jump to reach the thing he dreamed,
He looked back before he let go;
The lights that sprouted at his feet,
The world, fair and white, dotted with green,
Everything silent, without a tweet,
A filter of snow twirling around him in a dance.
Then, as he lept to the sky, the ground crashed
Falling backwards, his feet left the beam,
His heart - it smashed.
The fear clutched him in an iron grip.
Screaming on the inside, his eyes grew tired,
For he knew to release it would mean the end
So at his chest he fired a dash of lightning,
But the pain didn't die.
In agony, he fell and fell,
The ground crumbled at his touch
At no place could he be well
Falling and falling and falling forever;
Chains he felt around his wrists,
As if they were always there but never seen,
Did they really exist?
Then the fall stopped abruptly.
Hanging in a void, cold metal pushing against flesh,
Had he never been free?
A wave of terror submerged him, wounds fresh
And he screamed - the forbidden act.
The trees fell, flattened, on the ground,
The storm scattered, growing and growing until it
Became a cloud of darkness, ruling without a sound,
Wrapped around the sun like a jumper.
His chest was empty, yet eyes still wide in horror,
Watching his shadows take over the world,
Tormenting him with the voice of the armourer,
Grinning in the darkness, eyes gleaming;
"You have run far and fast," the voice laughed,
Taking pleasure in his torture,
"In a lake full of lava, you are floating on a raft;
Where will you run to now?"
The chains around his wrists grew red hot,
Glaring and burning through his soul,
He knew it was no use if he fought
– he was caught like a fly in a web.
Weeping, he went limp like a piece of meat,
Savouring and hating the pain that flashed through him;
He soon lost all feeling in his feet
– this was just the beginning.