Your love is like skydiving,
   an unnerving thought,
breathless & intoxicating
  elevations beyond exhilarating,
  as it transforms life's panorama
    nothing seemed ever the same,
         after the thrill of the fall

Frost forms on the window as I fly away from you,
looking through the crystals to clouds,
imagining falling through frigid air outside,
my faith in a folded parachute to end my flight.
You told me once you’d do it, you’d jump into the sky,
but never for the thrill of risk, only to rescue, to save a life.
I wonder if you see me falling into your eyes,
and in your heart, am I worth a dive
for love, or even friendship’s sake?
Maybe that jump's just a risk you won't take.

I prefer her
Over the bucket list
Her soft sweet voice
Over the deafening roar
The warmth of her unexpected touch
To the sting of the frigid wind
Hours waiting
Over the free-fall
The view into her blue eyes
Better than all of God’s green Earth
The relationship
Dwarfs the experience
Her smile followed by the laugh
To the cackle of the fat man on my back
Resting in peace facing the sun
Instead of flying alone into the ground
Sharing a drink full of germs
To scraping the dirt when I land
She is exhilarating
But more trustworthy than the fabric and strings
I prefer her

I feel like a lost little boy in the woods looking for a way out. HELP! HELP! I yell, yet no one answers I cannot handle these emotions turmoiling inside me I'm in hell I'm in ecstacy I'm no where in between love is a drug that cannot be compared it carries me to the absolute brink of the precipice and I stare down into the abyss that awaits to engulf me and devour my very being, my soul, I can't help but smile and laugh hysterically as I fall, I am absolutely elated and at the same time feel the abject terror flooding into the very core of my whole existence.  It is exhilarating.  I am in ******* agony I am in ******* intense beautiful rapture. I am skydiving without a parachute watching the ground scream towards me. I want to stay in free fall forever.

The raindrop
Stands alone
Then escapes the cloud
Like a skydiving soldier on mission
Whose face is proud.
It stands alone
In its descent,
Only to embrace the ground
As if it had a hand to hold.

But the earth is dry
And land is cold.

The rain drop is simple
And cool at heart.
Its thoughts so fickle
To make the foolish smart,
Yet I sometimes wonder
Were it sentient would it ponder
The significance of a lifetime between earth and yonder
And the sentiment of finding a purpose fonder.

For we are all like raindrops solitary
With a finite life span, temporary.
Some stand alone, and some find another
To join together and become stronger.

The lonely raindrop stands alone
But every raindrop makes the planet whole.

Mother Earth awakes, smiles at thunder
And says, “Mr. Lonely Raindrop: you have a home.”

so quick, so quick--
and it's over in appreciation's bloom
i run and kiss her- glad to be alive with you
adrenaline spread across
the slice of time i am
this life affirmed in downward rush
of vision    swallowing the whole
un    worded     awe
'i cannot be a poet now'

from reading on the drive there:
absurd psychology, it marvels at me
similizing downward flight    to that of two rakshasas thrown
from Angada's leap on Lanka
    palace tower kicked, another symbol falling
likened to Ravana's ego doomed,
ordering to **** that messenger
who revealing imminence alights the fate
of endings we all share,
how could i guess
i blindly follow orders--
the ten-headed ego writhes resistance
at the incapacity in me, the failure  
    to speak    meaningfully,
or trounce the message-bearer
routing through the speech
of others only    intoning at ten thousand feet:
om  earth   sky    cosmos
    contemplating that original love
perfect fullness     within and out
    let us realize our unity
om  peace   peace  peace
at the silence    in the noise
eudaimonic under breath as engine climbs
in moments    (i don't know how i got here)
i chant remembrance into time--
the solar warmth    a touch of ease
amid anticipation's quandary--
he has a helmet    unlike me  
    "Don't let those two mess with you,"
the camera-headed lady says to me before she jumps
her finger wagging    some distant familiarity
of jests to lighten fears    or twirl them in the air--
so cold the wind     and thin to singe the lungs--
his body hanging out the door     waiting for
her flight into his falling grasp    the plane rocks into the slamming door
the door...    is closed again for me to kneel beside
and think of next and after what has come before
    inching    'i love you' at the back of the plane
where crouched the one who whisked me here
in mystery to allow unveiling here today
from reading epic only--gazing down--"no signs" to give away
the open spaces felt and bright  treeless    vast
and getting out of car with closed eyes--
"surprise!" and there sits a plane or twenty over there
and "SKYDIVING" written on the door
which i am happy to dismiss as we walk the other way,
she wouldn't have the guts to surprise me with this--
but yes we turn around and here we are
with sky-crazies in pictures    peace and love on palms
strapped tandem     falling    living     back   still far from earth
we sign the papers under those smiles
faintly listen to the video  squawking 'court of law'
and 'choice of your own free will'
paid and signed away  we harness in and search for fear
windex for the goggles  (but how clearly will i see?)
my ***** are safe from straps or so i think
i'm conscious of the need to quip
and John and Paul--our parachutes--
become a double headed meet-your-maker Pope
for me to flatly joke about.
"Pain is good," says the pilot as
we learn the way to fall
and pile seven in a tiny cockpit,
we're off the ground before i know it
i 'woot' to sign my joy.   as much as to assent
conversations of little more than two lines
keep us feeling human as we swallow
popping in our ears,
--she'll have to keep her gum--
smoke stacks, mines, gray grids of residential scapes
seem to **** the green from curve of earth.
faintly i recall ecology, pulled into the sun
stumbling to cage the meaning of it all
a sentence forms into a trailing nonsense.
my breathing tests the press of straps on waist and chest
deafened, chanting. cease to chant.
the meaning overcome with wonderment beyond my mind.
am i missing something?
thank the pilot as a "Sir,"
"Door!!" "How long?!" "When!?!" --i hear the buckles faintly clicking,
the distance imperceptible a rush
of air i am infused with global letting be
the ball of tight electric fear
a nostril flare of otherworldly falsity--
i am here.
and tilting, instructions gibberish, shouting go! go!!
a kneeling fetal hop into the gust of void
so full the eyelash burns horizonal










.

Illusions of skydiving in a kimono
are not nightmares that awaken her
in a sweat each night

Fantasies of floating like a drone
creep into morning daydreams

Unprepared for make-believe
no kimono hangs in her closet

Each day she stands in front
of her full-length mirror
stares at perceived imperfections
as they thicken before her eyes

Friends don’t notice
each misplaced mole
or cellulite pleading
to hide from any
audience

Co-workers notice her
post-it-note headline

“Intelligent Perfect Women
Skydives in Kimono”

affixed to the cubicle wall

Today results of
her search for kimonos
of various colors
is carefully placed in
a folder entitled skydiving

I never fell in love with you
Falling implies disillusion
As if i didnt know exactly
What i was in for
When i looked into your eyes
And found constellations
That i had searched for
My whole life

It implies a failed understanding
Like i had walked off a long pier
And suddenly found you there
In the water, holding me
Instead of rushing to the water
Knowing you would be there
To catch me when i dropped
And never drowned

I never fell in love with you
I grew love for you
A slow budding bloom
That became a vibrant blossom
Ever growing, ever changing
I swelled love for you
It rising and falling
Like an unsure tide
On a new-formed shore

I built love for you
A home of it
All bricks and mortar
In the sacred parts of myself
Where you are always welcome
To walk through the door
And never fall.

my bucket list was always

skydiving
zip lining
fall in love

but i have since realized skydiving is unrealistic
zip lining has been done already
and falling in love...
falling in love is not a box you can check off.

i fell in love with the idea of falling
not knowing it would be
as intense as it is,
like skydiving without a parachute or
the cable breaking while zip lining

except with this,
i don't mind the plummet
in fact, my stomach dropping
feels a little like the butterflies that still kiss my insides
when i see you;

everything else on my bucket list feels
insignificant
because i met you;
that's (almost) enough adventure
for me.
-a.c.b