As I Fell

I laughed as I fell.

I was trying to be brave you know.

Like my sister.

So I made myself get on that bicycle and was punished for my silliness.

The world doesn't want bravery, it never did.

So I sit still, keep quiet, learn my lesson and conform.

I learn to sit and read and smile and nod and play along.

I am an actor on a stage who never knows if they are playing their role perfectly enough.

It takes a toll on me.

Heavy, sinking shoulders, tired desperate eyes.

I search for light in the dark as I prance about on stage with a plastered smile to my face.

It's much harder to see a person struggles when they know just how to hide it.

But the play got exhausting.

Slowly, surely, I began to fail.

I got so bad at playing pretend that the world began to snarl at me, asking for more, more, more

But I had nothing left to give

My body sagged at my sides

Perhaps that's why depression is called deep rest

A void took over my flesh and bones and the puppet strings couldn't bear the weight of a lifeless corpse

So I was snipped away, left to float about in the abyss for some time

Left to die because I wasn't quite good enough

The days stretched to weeks and months and the play went on in the background, cursed by my empty symphony

And then one day, everything changed.

My mind had me at the brink of collapse

My body urged me onwards to make a visit to Death, one I would never return from

I found myself ready too, tears clouding my vision, exhaustion taking me into their gentle arms

I weeped and I weeped until softly, slowly, the strings began to untangle themselves from my neck and my ankles

I saw a light I'd never seen before and by God, did I run to it

I could finally breathe.

There was a leap to be taken.

One little leap and I would change the entire trajectory of my future...

Just one small leap of faith, screw parents screw law screw the life they'd planned for me to have

I hope to God I fly but I still remember those days

The pain it took.

The agony twisted around my heart like dark thorns that I can never truly explain

Until I simply gave up and decided that if my life was to be a joke, I would make it the most hilarious thing it could be

Rewrite my story, fill the empty cavity in my chest with song and laughter

Real or fake

After so long spent gasping for breath

I had no idea things would be so different

When I first allowed myself to plunge into the air

Like Icarus reaching for his sun but

I laughed as I fell