It was never the searing heat that got me
Nor the heights
I have always known I could fly
Even if mud-caked mules tried to convince me
That I was doomed to be earthbound
No
The atmosphere was choking me
Down here with my demons and dilemmas and denials
So despite desperate braying
I unfurled fragile wings and
Soared
Caught an updraft
Until I had outrun it all
Until all I could hear was my own thundering heart
Hammering my problems to pixie dust

It was the shimmering
That was my first undoing
Enamored
I crowned myself queen in the clouds
Swirled in gilded revelry
And smiled lazily at this sweat-slicked kingdom
Even knowing that someday
Someday
Gravity would have its way
But up here
Force and the laws of physics
Seemed too far to ever catch me
Here
Where everything was lined with silver
I thought I could trick Fate
Into handing someday to someone else

In the end
The shock of the fall
Was because it wasn't on my to-do list
I was still reveling
Reckless in the radiance
Basking in the sun
And running from all the things
That had kept me up at night
Holding court in my cloud castle
Imagine my surprise
When I realized I hadn't outpaced them all
That feeling of the floor falling out from under me
When one caught me by the wings
And yanked
Fate, it seemed, would not be denied
Had to be paid Her somedays
In full
As I tumbled into gravity's clutches
I wondered if this time
This time
Would be when I'd stop learning the hard way
If someday my lessons could be coaxed from me gently
Rather than ripped from me screaming
If a different kind of someday could find me
As I lay
Bruised and bewildered
In the mud