A city with a split soul
Once sat high on a hill.
The city was split:
Higher and lower planes.
The higher plane was for
the fortunate,
the powerful,
the wealthy,
the elegant.
Only the best were allowed.
The lower plane housed the
Outcasts,
Forgotten,
Clumsy,
Abandoned.
The society deemed them to
Belong in the sewers;
To be deserving of the worst
Humanity had to offer.
To fall from the upper plane
Was the ultimate shame
Because you could
never go back.
You can fall from grace,
But never rise to elegance.

Upper city was once home,
But, then they learned how
Clumsy and ungraceful I am.
After spilling the soup
Too many times,
They cast me down
To join the lower city.
Home is now among
The lowest of the low.

After fumbling along
Without any sense of direction,
I learned why I was lost.
Upper city was where
Pomp and protocols
Dictated every move.
Now free from that,
I had no way of knowing
The path before me.
The confusion, however,
Came from me,
From my being
unaccustomed to making
My own decisions.

Finding my own way
Was hard, but I learned
That my fall from elegance,
That my fall from grace,
Had been a blessing,
Not a curse.
Free from the rigidity
Of elegance, there was
The vibrancy of clumsiness.
In the stumbling, faltering
Manner through which I
Guided my life, I found
A sweet freedom in
The possibilities.
It is because of this
Wild sensation called
Freedom that I love
The lower city
And pity the upper one.