Intentions

When I stand on the tops of tall places, I often look to the ground and want to jump.

I don’t know why. I know it would kill me and I have no intention of dying, so I don’t do it, but a part of me wants to.

Wants like the way sunlight wants to reach the earth, wants like the way water wants to run downhill and like gravity wants to drag everything together and hold it tight where it can’t get away.

I don’t know if it’s the thrill, the escape, the adventure of falling.

I don’t know if it’s the morbid curiosity of what death would feel like.

It could be the self-serving need to know that someone would miss me, that my funeral would be full and my parents would mourn.

It could simply be that I want to do something no one would guess, that I want to be surprising and unexpected.


I think its because I can.

I can make the choice, I can toss myself over a ledge and all anyone can do is watch me fall.

I like to think I would hit the ground with a smile on my face.

And if I thought for a single moment that I would simply bounce off, landing lightly off my feet, brush off my back and continue about my day, grinning over my shoulder at the shocked faces around me, I guarantee I would do it often.

I think the reason I don’t is because I can.

No one can force me to jump and no one can force me not to.

I look down at jagged cityscapes and welcoming sidewalks and I keep my footing sure and steady.

It’s my choice to make, my life in my own hands, as changeable as a child’s song.

I smile down at the ground below me.

I have no intention of dying today.