Falling Backwards
She walks like a sentence edited too many times boots scuffing commas into the sidewalk coat pockets full of yesterday’s ideas
Her glasses slide down as if gravity has a personal grudge
She carries a coffee that tastes like burnt philosophy balanced between fingers painted the color of midnight vinyl
Everyone else moves forward
She moves well, mostly sideways occasionally into chairs once directly into a very polite fern
and then it happens again
A missed step a loose shoelace a moment where the ground quietly forgets to stay where it was
She falls backwards like a thought reconsidered
Arms windmilling coffee briefly achieving flight the universe pausing to watch gravity win its small argument
But she laughs from the pavement
Because falling backwards means she was leaning somewhere new trying a direction no map had the nerve to draw
and besides
She insists while brushing dust from her thrift-store coat
they sky looks better when you meet it on the way down
