backward somersault into oblivion

before her eyelids snap shut she secretly wishes that she will not wake up---yes, she makes a pact with the devil she doesn’t believe in just to piss off the god (s) that would us it as a crutch when they can’t find new ways in the 21st to define themselves as anything else but completely & utterly irrelevant.

& when her eyelids snap---she pulls her head in like that of a snapping turtle, hoping that the winds & animals outside won’t try and find their way in---this dark and she’s coming to a full stop at a yield sign---she’s pushing the boat out into murky waters without any paddles comin’ with her---she’s sitting down at the table of writers telling them that every cliché in the book has been squeezed out like grapes beneath our feet---she’s the one individual left holding a basket of crumbs in the town square when all the rest of us urchin have scavenged every bit of bread that we were never said to be given by the holy higher-ups, but that we took anyway. and with my own teeth still crunching down on that very stale sustenance, i blink my own eyes and waver in and out of her own reality---until she knows not what she sees and hangs x-mas holiday garland all over me to make sure that there’s a body there, somewhere in the dark.

contractions inside the place that she does not want to go leave her numb and she kicks back in the chair that has been set out for her by the people watching---all the celebrity-eaters, the carnivores waiting for her immediate downfall in order to scrape up what’s left of her and disassemble the rest to post on e-bay when the week progresses---she stretches out her arms and tries to make it to the top of the deep ocean dwelling.

& the battery in her cellphone is dying. & she wants to call the most important person on earth but she just isn’t picking up. she’s been closed out of the situation. she’s been left on the side of the road, she’s been pushed off to the side, she’s been pushed up that river without a paddle---did we already mention that?

she looks to her left. she looks to her right. she climbs up the tower with the diving board tens of feet above the surface of the ground lying parallel to the top of the forty something feet deep pool---walking out on the plank---shining young in her two-piece she looks down for observers but there is no one---she holds her arms out, spread eagle---walking backwards towards the end of the board.

eyes closed. the breeze tickles her outer being & rattles her inner being. she feels energy in every part of her (including the places that she was hesitant in believing that were even there anymore). fingertips tingling. remembering what david blaine said in his story describing how he held his breath for those 17 minutes---she counts the minutes now as she stands there---much like blaine 100 something feet for 35 hours in the middle of bryant park---yes, she is something of a debbie blaine, no? she thinks to herself that she can establish her own sense of value through whatever it is that she is doing at this exact moment---and so she bends her knees---practicing for the real backwards move---and ONE, TWO, THREE.

her beautiful body floats down through the art like a jart coming back down onto the stupid child hurling them up into the air at a mid-summer family picnic (before they were outlawed)---and within those same last seconds that the child has before the jart has time to come penetrating its face, slicing the length of the jart through the screaming kid’s body, dropping it to the ground---with that same moment, she, our beautiful winged human bird of a sort, hits head-first into the empty concrete pool---her whole head & upper torso splashing out into a painting of blood & bone explosion.

always look before you jump.