Attached
You tread only where the stones don’t wobble.
Your feet prod at them to make sure.
Every slight movement in the ground below them
threatens to send you reeling to the dirt.
Falling is fear and fear is the enemy,
for fear is the scalpel which splits the stitches
that hold old wounds closed tight.
I stand behind you and push.
Every tender thing is a strong shove.
Every sliver of love is a palm clapped to your back
giving the pressure which makes avoidance
nigh untenable.
After all, one fights gravity only momentarily.
The swaying and buckling and stumbling
mark an exercise in futility everlasting,
for all of us will one day fall.
Fear is my enemy, too.
Every trembling step I witness shows not the care
with which that step is taken,
for your damning hesitance shouts it down
until quiet is all that remains.
In the silence I hear a distant screaming
and rapid footfalls which echo with the sound
of absence and days gone by.
I shove hard and beg for trust.
I trip your feet and plead for sweetness.
I tie strings about your shoulders and yank
as if love should resemble a marionette’s waltz
because the dance keeps the fear sidestage.
What started as a walk taken side-by-side
has been twisted by us into a death march,
journeyed ever onward in sorrowful hope
that the stones will never give way
and the balance will never be faltered
and the uncertainty will turn into surety
and the silence will one day stop screaming.
