Down and Out

Down and Out

He stares down at the people below,

Huddling from the same wind that whips at his hair.

Some rush about their hectic lives,

Oblivious to his presence watching them from above.

Cars creep along black strips of road,

Driving to destinations never for him to know.

He feels so removed from them all,

Omnipresent to their simple existence.

As the wind whips his hair across his face,

Bathed in the glow from the setting sun,

He feels like joining them down there;

But he has always been alone, never been a part of it,

Always the outsider, never a belonger.

The simplicity of society has always rested on his shoulders,

Like the immeasurable weight of God's hand;

He can feel that same hand giving him a nudge,

A push in their direction,

The direction of normality.

Oh, how he wants to join them, to be one of them,

To end the pain of being different,

Of being alone.

His feet are on the edge, hair whipping his about face;

A glance up across the rooftops to the heavens,

To the dying throes of a brilliant sun.

A grieving heart, stalled in its beating of hurt;

A sudden inhalation of breath;

A foot over the edge;

The hand of God at his back, easing him into space;

The floating sensation of falling gently down,

Like a leaf in the breeze, he is a life in the wind.

His hair billows behind him,

Making a final grasp for something solid.

And he's falling, floating, the street coming up to meet him,

He has their attention now, the hand of God has left him;

Most are just staring, and he grins at this irony.

The car didn't stand a chance.

As neither did his fragile body.

Broken and bloody, and stretched upon the glazed metal,

His pain ebbs from him in spurts and flows,

And, finally at rest, his eyes close.
All he ever wanted, he now has,
To feel that sweet feeling of peace he never had.

By J. Barrett