What is it
That drives this need
This compunction
You seem so willing
To assume
The weight of...
... responsibility for
These taciturn involutions
As well as...
Any residual guilt
That
Later on
May well be felt
When no solution
Exists
And all this
In some futile effort
To pretend
I don't exist
That you never saw me
When my hopeless soul
Or my misshapen body
Was right there
Before you
As you went on by
When you could have
Simply ... looked my way
Caught my eye
Smiled and said "hi"

Instead of pretending you didn't see me

Did you walk a wide path
Ripping and tearing out anything
That got in your way

Or were you  a bit more  sedate
Walking a path narrow and straight
Making sure you never did stray

Did you ever look around you when
You can taste and feel the world on the Wind
And give it even a single thought

Or did you just look straight ahead
As if you knew where your Life Path led
And was that all you ever sought

Well I'll tell you now just what I see
A man in a cage who thinks he's walking free
So all I really want to know

With your head held high and totally blind
To anything outside your one-track mind
Will you're passing through have anything to show

Whenever you look back
Do you see any of the tracks
That you left

Or is  your past
Sad empty and cold
And totally bereft

Just a sad and lonely state
A hollow life that didn't rate
Enough to make a lasting mark

You may not have really been blind
But when you're done and gone leaving no sign
You might as well be walking in the dark

When you look back...
Will you see any tracks you left?

As if from out of nowhere
Gnarled Twisted fingers
With jagged rusting fingernails
Reached out ... Grabbing me
Dragging me... Back
From going over the precipice

Stopping the headlong tumble
Into that deep dark echoless Abyss
At that critical moment
Of complete systems failure
When the call of the Void
Seems impossible to deny

Convinced
That falling through the darkness
Would seem as if I could fly
I sensed
The siren song was calling to me
As it had been all along

Just as I let Go ... Leaning in
Relinquishing control
Those wrinkled withered hands
With the Twisted gnarled fingers
And those rusted over fingernails
Pulled me back.... With
Strength  incomprehensible

Freeing a Sinister scream of agony
Pure pain and despair
Ripping out and splitting the air
As it rose up from the depths
Of that deep Darkness... that
Echoless void

Someone had reached out...
... To save me
So I turned to see who... it was
That had pulled me back
Wondering how it is...
... That they knew

There was no one there
Just the last fading remnants
Of a shadow on the wall
So I smile to the Fates
As I gather paper and pen
Making a note for my future
Lest I ever forget and Tumble back in

Then with withered and wrinkled hands
I Hold Steady to the notepad
With rusting fingernail adorned
Twisted and gnarled fingers
I begin
A whole different flight
As I begin to write