If you fly too close to the sun
you might get burned.

Me?

I saw my chance
stretched out before me
and I jumped,
discovered I could fly.

Me?

I picked the sun,
paid the price
for the high.

-

I have known
darkness.

And yet
every time
I plunge
down,
        down,
            down,

it’s always the same
Shock,
and pain.

Oh God,
the pain.

-

Deep in the dark,
I curse the day
I ever saw the sun.

Better, instead,
to have been born a mole,
content to spend my life
snuffling about in the soil.

Deep in the dark,
licking my wounds,
I am certain that this
is the end.

-

Good bye to
trust,
to love,
to warmth.

Good bye.

-

How could this have happened?
I cry out to myself,
but when the tears dry
I remember.

Remember how
I am addicted to risk,
addicted to the extremes of feeling -
anything to escape
the Nothingness.

I always seem to be courting
the ones that carry concealed weapons
they don’t know how to wield.

And, me?

I am the perfect target.

-

I figure I deserve this,
and so
I make rock bottom my home,
try to get used to the dark,
try throw a cloak over
the light I've known
try to bury it deep underground.

-

I dig and dig and dig.
My blood goes cold,
I hibernate.

-

I hibernate
until one day
I find I can move.

My limbs work,
I am not as broken
as I thought.

-

I am cold,
I miss the sun.

-

So I shake off sleep,
and pack up my things.

I am not a worm,
not a mole.
Dark
was never meant to be
my home.

I turn
all the swords in my back
into a ladder
and I haul myself up.

-

Back on solid ground,
I begin to warm up.