Don’t swing so high, my parents said.
You’ll learn to fly, or you’ll wind up dead.
You kick off with your knees. Your feet leave the ground and you immediately tilt back and encourage them skyward.
You pump with your hips, and the rope stretches like a new found limb. You have increased your height, your reach.
You fly on a filament, a loose thread from the Heavens. You become a the pendulum clockwork of the world – an immediate belonging and purpose.
Higher is better. Longer and faster. You let your head slide back and your eyes deny the ground, seeking infinity. It’s a kind of oblivion.
You are energy, the stuff of everything. You are no longer gravity’s child.
Your were warned to be careful. What is care? To be full of that when you could be full of air… Airful. You are airful.
The world falls away. You rise above the canopy of clouds. You think that beauty goes on forever. Until a rope snaps.
The fibers had frayed, but you didn’t see that. The hold was tenuous, but it felt like no hold at all. You rode suspended from belief.
It is a real breaking. You plunge into the chasm. The abyss. You swoon with falling. You tumble. You dive, against your will.
Momentum betrays you. You twist, try to turn, as though a last look at the world above will save you.
The ground rushes fast. You think of Icarus. How you dared. And then you think of nothing.
Caution was gravity’s child. You wanted the sun.