Long and arduous had been the climb.
Fifty years or so in the making.
A pinnacle claimed but unseen for what it was.
Was it folly or push that became my past, present and future.

Falling was but a blink in the making.
No anchor to hold me and foundations removed, abandoned, lost.
Successions of ricochets from jagged rock to jagged rock.
Carved to the core by granite hard betrayal and failures.

By chance did my fingers gain purchase to slow the fall.
More of a roll downhill than the plummet that near killed me.
But still trending down into the chasm of who I have become.
The place I am, the present, the bloodied remnant of who I was.

Limbs askew and misshapen-ed, bones shattered and core exposed.
Total vulnerability to even the meekest of creatures with ill intent.
Cowered, afraid and alone in and darkness still falling.
Momentary reprieve as fingers strike stone but too torn to grasp.

Mind operating in fragmented, distorted jigsaws of thought.
No box top picture remaining to focus the picture I am meant to be.
Too many pieces in different shapes to be who I once was.
Uncertain of enough pieces to make myself a semblance of whole.

Still endless the fall and the darkness.
Creature or granite strike constantly feared.
Cowered, alone, afraid and defeated.
The darkness and fall are who I have been made.