Freefall Poem by Joyce Rugg

Voices whisper, promising sweet sleep
I look, but see nothing in the deep
Nothing different from where I am now
The only change, it doesn’t bow

To the joy that pulls me to the sky
That leaves me giddy, too breathless to ask why
Like someone has a gun to my head
A false cheery voice, “be happy or you’re dead”

No choice, though I’d much rather die
They see the surface, believe the lie
When the skeleton shows, they call it an act
Blind to the broken bones, to the impact

Like a star falling to the sea
The end of all I’ll ever be
The light that was so clear
Will suddenly disappear

If I don’t drown, I hit land
The jagged rocks, not sand
Able only to lie on red-stained stone
A macabre painting, but it’s my own

A sign that I had really been there
That I wasn’t just someone’s nightmare
Everlasting, till swept away by a flood
A marker, a monument in blood

Life, trapped in a sepulcher
Now, a blessed departure
Away from all the judging eyes
In falling, I rise