The Cliffs of Insanity

“It’ll be fun!” they said

And I watched them

Plunging

Into the frigid water four stories down.  

There I stood,

Terrified,

Trembling,

Mere feet from a staggering

Drop

A clear mountain lake glittering

Menacingly

far

below.

Too often, do I let fear get the best of me

Too often, do I want so badly to take the upper hand

With nothing to show for it.

I always wanted to know

What it was like

To plunge from the sky

To conquer the fall

As I watched others leap where I longed to.

But—

I always stopped myself

From making the climb,

Too afraid to even try.

Yes, the world can be a dark and scary place.

There exist dangers

more terrifying

more real than heights,

But sometimes trivial things seem the scariest

Distracted by the size of their shadow

We relinquish our power—

Far too much of it—

To something

Which is really of

Much less significance

Than it seems.

Yes, trivial things

like going to school, or speaking in public,

or jumping off a cliff.

That day,

I was determined

To FINALLY OVERCOME!

Sick

Of letting cowardice control me

Tired

Of sitting in the safety of the background.

I did not want

To look back on my life and find

That I, the “master of my fate”

The “captain of my soul”

Had sold my freedom to some tyrant called “Fear.”  

And so there I stood,

Having made the climb,

Waiting patiently—

Very patiently—

In line to throw myself off the edge.

Watching

With a fascinated horror

As my friends,

One by one,

Dropped off the face of the earth

Giddy with laughter.

Leaving me, a prisoner,

Slowly i n c h i n g

Towards her execution.

Inevitably

My turn came.

Friends and leaders cheered.

That was my cue.

Take one last decisive step

And leap to victory!

I .Could. Not. Move.

Even worse,

I started to cry.

    However—

Though frozen stiff

Though whimpering and miserable

Though eyes stinging with tears

I refused to leave that ledge.

At a crossroads

When you can’t find the strength

To continue alone,

Friends

Can be complete angels—or devils, I say,

As on the count of three

… I let her kindly drag me down to

A very wet

And cold

Hell.  

I wailed

Like a damned soul

The entire

way

down.  

I wish I could say

I came up to the surface

A conquering hero,

Wide grin

Mind brimming with enlightenment

Crowned with a halo of sunlight

(Maybe some kind of musical number)

Au contraire.

In my frenzy to

Escaped the mind-freezing water,

I almost did take

A permanent trip to Hell,

And my devilish friend with me.

Flopping onto land like a dead fish,

Gasping and sobbing,

It took an embarrassingly long time to recover

… But then,

I was fine.

I did it. I actually did it.

And it wasn’t such a big deal anymore.

Elated

I even swam

The entire length of the lake!

Something, equally terrifying to me before.

It was as if

From that descent into my mind’s Hell

I had grown wings to soar above it.

It was as if

Light scattered that monstrous shadow

And revealed

Just how silly the thing I feared

Really was.  

I am still terrified.

Why in my

Right mind

Should I ever stop feeling reluctant

To jump off the side of a cliff?

But the thing is…

Now I know I can.

And I have since made the jump

Many times.