My fingers curl on to the edge. I'm hanging on a cliff side not so parallel with what I wanted. I'd like to say I can't think straight, that a thousand trails of thought got tangled, but in truth they're perfect horizontal lines and lying to myself just isn't worth the effort. I can feel the wind between my toes. I know it means freedom, I know I would be the final link in the daisy chain to break (it's still in that tin box underneath my bed, browned and far too fragile to support its own weight). But I can't erase the thought of what lies below; of what would happen if those wings were born purely of adrenaline, if I folded against the earth, because it turned out the world outside your arms was not a place for little girls. I can feel you underneath my fingers, holding on tight to my slipping grip. I can still smell the tangerine musk of your shirt as I run my fingers across its collar. I can feel the crook of your arm pull me closer. I can see the black of your eyes lock me into the very place I've stood, unmoving, for five months.

I'm grasping at strings but they're turning up short and I don't think I take this futile game any longer.

As I contemplate the course of gravity, I wonder at the sound a heart would make, when dropped from _{fifty feet}.

The way you plucked me from a tree
Decided I would be the apple of your eye.
Thought I walked on clouds
Because the streets weren't paved in gold.

You built me higher than the mountain peaks
Little did you know I needed fast-food, concrete, oxygen.
Everything that doesn't sparkle
Because I can't live on pretty metaphors alone.

One January day your eyes turned grey
You dropped your pride and saw the pavement cracks.
After all, I'm only human
So why do you make me feel

Almost criminal?