If I could live where I felt my
greatest fear--high places, away from Earth--
the pleasures and triumphs
I crave would be sweeter, sharper,
more worth noting.
When draped at the edge of a precipice,
actually clinging to some rigid object
dying on the inside from a
vividly dreamed screaming fall,
I should villify vertigo no longer, but
trust it as a living expense,
one dearly and necessarily paid.
I should lean over and expose
my love over the top of a statuesque
building's top balcony:
imagine poetry on the peaks of suburban rooves,
fishing off windy bridges,
swings placed and exercised on voltage wires down South.
I can imagine the pounding of my beautiful pulse
as I find notices of sorrow, read
tragedies, observe starlight on the tips
of parking structures.
I have no wish to die, but the
fact of mortality inspires me.
I have no wish to see the world from
the edge of an airplane, or to drop
from one--even with a parachute--
but to do so, to face my
greatest physical fear,
my nearness to the possibility of death may endorse
the normality-quieted soul that
calls out for real experiences
other than those in this ironic, careful,
self-aware and half-meant existence I now
shyly call my own.
I am not much for risks,
but allow me one fine place in
sunset, where shadows are cast long,
birds fly below, objects fall out of
sight under my feet.
I don't want death yet, but
I am willing to put myself through
facing the next best thing.