A Fall Withheld by Sara Hassan

Do you not think of all the times we didn’t fall? Each time just experiencing a sliver of the awaited pull, the promise of hurtling towards the chasm of infinity. The call of judgement swinging above our heads; dangling with an unquestionable certainty, yet never making true on its promise. When despair was ripe for the taking but still eluded our grasps. Toying with us, surely: we are merely prey to a hunter. 

We are always there, on the precipice of the drop beneath the souls of our feet, but some essence- fate or chance perhaps- lays a barrier to obscure the edge. Maybe we want to tempt it, edge just that much closer, in hopes to glimpse at the ledge and what lies beyond. We may know we should not even entertain the idea yet how are we to resist the open call of our curious natures? To not give in to the demand that we push a bit further, press a bit harder, break through the limitations which make us question why they were constructed.

Do you not wonder why humanity still insists on being given the right to do as it pleases, to never surrender what experimentations it dreams up? Why do we fight to cling to our fantasies and then persevere in their tragic turns, only to start again as if we learned nothing? We evaded countless falls and endured millions more just because something linked in our atoms refused to be bargained with. We held onto scraps and bled on the jagged rocks as we hoisted ourselves onto even land. We slipped, or let go, or accepted the end staring into the void. We witnessed our rise over others and we hoped to outdo it all when it became our time to face the marching force of decay over all life.

Do you not feel the eddies colliding in their storms? Opposing forces, opposite sides, perspectives too diverging. What makes them so certain in their paths, so firm in their beliefs? Is it not, then, our humanness alone that deems us falsely worthy of our titles? Is it not that we were cut from some cashmere cloth, but that we choose to be sewn in a pattern of our own devising? Is it because we make our delusions shine like gold and let its glitter blind us, that the only way for us to see beyond those deceiving constellations is to spill forth our faith in surplus. 

To learn and abide by humbleness and sincerity in the face of worlds that dwell much too deeply in indulgences and haughty promises. Can we only impede the steepest of falls when we surrender to more than ourselves and receive guidance in its truth?