Highwalker

Of paths

There are ups and downs

Curling ribbons that stray beyond gravity

Dancing among the stars

In twists and turns.

Above and below

Are impossible.

Wander from the path, and you lose yourself

Gasping for air, drifting

Limbs useless

An astronaut who lost the line

The ribbons are red

Wet with blood

Of selves and others

They cut at the grasp

They are salvation.

Choose.

One is a comfort

But cuts deeper

Severing the nerves

Until there is no feeling

Flesh prevails.

The other rips the hands apart,

A constant temptation to let go

Acerbic agony for every sensation

But

The soul survives.

The paths may curve, but the choice is clear.

High

Low

Or oblivion

Highwalker,

What horizon do you see

That makes you grip to pain?

What end, imaginable or not

Makes right that sufferance?

I cry liberty, sojourner.

For you do not know freedom

Until you have embraced it in your middle, past the knell

I cannot explain these things to one who has forgotten how to die.