Falling

 

he fell off his bike.

he fell off his bike and the marks of the place he was passing are scraped all over him.

that place he was passing, that place he had no design to stay at, has reached out and tumbled him in its gravelly maw.

it has reached out from its unwantedness and (with some help, distant but not too far, some lost nail or some swift needling sharpness, noticed only after the pause) it has seized him.

it has seized him and torn through slick fabric and into flimsy flesh.

it has painted its yawning disdain in broad careless gashes across his thighs.

it has not returned the softness of his embrace while it held him there, sprawled in the place he had no plan to remain at.

i too fell.

not from a bike, not on a road, but i fell.

i fell and the hardness of the fall was not just the rocks, the concrete, the stones in my mouth, it was the resolute hardness of your silence and your disdain.

i fell, and i fell as if the falling might take me to another place, a less hard place, a place with no design to break me.

i fell, and i fell like all i have ever done is falling, and the only place i fall to is one of breaking.

and all of the falling i have done has brought me to this same place.

not alone but forsaken.

and this fall and this breaking and this terrible uncaring has painted itself, yes, in tearing dark holes in my skin, and in my sense and my light and in my flimsy hope.

it is painted there in dark deep scars, and the dark deep pain in my  feet, my legs, my hip, my heart, my unmade torn flesh.

i fell, and i fell, and i am still falling 

falling

falling

falling