The Fall (Poetry)

No one saw him climb out on the bridge
to hang above the current’s ebb and flow —
a pale-skinned youth detached from this world’s care
and focused on the river, far below.

A moment’s hesitation, then he jumped
from his trapeze in some dark circus ring,
plunging, but no safety wire looped back —
he arrowed down with rigid discipline.

The fall was quiet — a parting of the air
to let him through — no sound escaped his lips;
a nameless body plummeting through space
and swallowed in a watery eclipse.

And when they pulled him out, no one remarked
how Death had played the sympathetic thief,
robbed him of all fear and picked him clean —
left his face a mask of sheer relief.

He took one sip of freedom as he fell,
savoured it like wine — they’d never know
the fierce exhilaration of that flight,
the flood of thoughts that held his mind in tow.

They labelled him a jumper — called him sad,
dismissed him as another mental case
believing he could fly. His vision held
and brought him in to land some other place.