At The Ledge

Each time before when I had fallen, landing in the pit below,

I found upon the ground were words that I could gather up to build

a latticework of scaffolding to climb upon so I could go

back to the surface with the crowd, but every time I found that still

 

I’d stay close to the ledge not knowing why I didn’t walk away.

I told myself it wasn’t wise. I asked, “why don’t you ever learn?”

It seemed t’was in my blood forever, an unexplained desire to stay,

a search for reasons I could finally give up once again and turn

 

to take that foolish step and plunge myself back in the pit of pain

where I would sip it down as liquor, custom stilled to quench the thirst.

It had become the only way I knew to feel something again,

a custom-made handcrafted sculpture of what was to me the worst.

 

But somewhere in that dreaded cycle, midst the chore of gathering words

I found some until then passed over. No, t’was not at all by chance.

I knew they were those long ago while in my youth I’d onetime heard

but I had never chose to use them. They seemed foolish at a glance.

 

They were to me the words of fable, used to herd the crowd above,

but in my hour of desperation there was nothing else to do

and so I started sifting through them til I found the word of “love”

which left me standing, staring at it til I’d fully thought it through.

 

This was the word I had avoided. I felt it was so overused.

It seemed to mingle every single poem and book and tale and song,

but in that moment standing there I realized I’d been confused.

That everything I had associated it with had been wrong.

 

For in the pile I’d found it in were other words I’d also passed

over and I must admit, I done so all the while in fear.

Won’t ever understand it but, I finally opened up and asked

God to help me, then I stood in silence wondering if he’d hear.

 

But I was soon distracted for I watched these words, before my eyes,

move out from the pile where one by one they all aligned themselves

into the most poetic prose, which as I read it made me cry

and when I wiped the tears away, I looked around and found myself

 

atop a mountain, high above the land below, no longer near

the pit of pain. I stood there for a long time taking in the view,

and as I did the message that the words formed became very clear.

The word of “love” stood boldly in my mind and I knew what to do.

 

The years have now passed on ere since that time I finally changed my ways.

Would like to say I’ve never since come close unto the pit of pain

but I admit, I still go there to celebrate my darkest days

and when I’m there I stand close to the edge to look back down again.

 

But now each time I stand there, I no longer feel the way I did.

I’m not there to fall, but rather simply view it from the ledge above.

I guess I like the feeling I get when I walk away instead, 

knowing that it’s possible… because I finally learned of love.