THE MAN WHO FELL FROM THE TIGHTROPE
June 24, 2007
© Fred Dumpling. Redistribution is prohibited.
Oh,
One foot set in front of the other
to trace the strict path of the tightrope walker.
No deviation is permitted;
we're too far ascended.
Stay within these premises
as they are
Defined edges are too hard to see
when ropes coil and cease to be
in the distance.
He forgets what he is chasing, but he stays and obeys,
and she watches from below.
She had come up some time ago.
I don't remember how this all ends, but
He'd held her hands some time ago.
I know there's something at the end of the line.
She begged him to release the rope,
I was always scared of falling.
but he feared what he didn't know.
Never mind that there's a net.
Oh,
Now a corpse walks where he left off,
never to escape the path that he began.
I had hoped they would relieve you
of wills they'd forced upon you,
but you had adopted them
as your own
Thoughts raced through a dead man's silent mind,
remembering and mourning the love he'd left behind.
There's no reason that he'd walked here, but he'd stayed and obeyed,
and now he can't escape.
The man who fell from the tightrope
would have fared far better than I, whose fate was decided
by overprotective guides,
and they loved me as you've loved me,
so I let them keep me
here, and you would catch me
if I'd fallen, but I
clung to paths defined for me,
never learning how to breathe
for myself, so I'm trapped
on this narrow line.