The picture is just so you're sure that you know.
We stand upon a tower looking onto the city below and we take a deep breath in and I think of all the things you've ever told me; taught me.
And I'm back in that moment; the moment that we sat with our arms side by side, touching for the first time in a year, when you told me that “people like average because they can relate.”
It was then that I realised that if I ever wanted another shot then I would need you to relate to me.
I'd need to be on your level.
At the top of perfection.
But I thought about it and it became apparent that perfection doesn't need perfection.
Perfect needs average as without it, it would cease to exist.
It balances, counting on the average to stay in the middle, drifting as their support as the justification for it's title.
So I took this theory and I decided to attempt to prove how much you mean to me in the only way I know how; in the mediocrity of my writing.
This is how we got where we are now.
This is why I stand by your side and lower myself onto my front with my head overhanging the edge of the tower so all I can see is forward. The forward that is actually a seemingly endless drop straight to the ground; to inevitable death. With only mist in my eye line, obscuring me from seeing too far down the line.
You look at me and smile and the only certainty of my life doesn't seem so bad.
As you bend onto your elbows to raise yourself up again, you offer me your hand to help me back to your level and it reminds me of how I would have nothing without you.
Even though you left me in the middle, on average ground, you taught me the importance of climbing.
So here I am, at the top as I look straight ahead, into the endless blue that is divided by a rope that hangs in front of me and you place one hand on the rope and you wrap the other around my fingers.
I turn back towards you; the only person I truly respect.
The only person I've ever loved and I whisper into your ear;
“You taught me how to climb now I'll teach you how to fall.”
You laugh at me and my tendencies for the cliché because you know me too well.
“You can hold onto the rope and lower yourself down, checking your every move but the weight of us both will just leave you with raw hands and rope burn.”
But you're stubborn.
Always so stubborn.
You hold onto the rope and push off but with your hand tight in mine I stay planted to the tower and you hang there in the balance.
I ask you “Do you really want to live without risk?”
You laugh yet again.
“You won't feel the burn until you're at the bottom and you look back up. I'd rather let go and fly and not have the chance to look back and regret.”
I stand at the top of the tower alone, with both hands on yours and we laugh at each other.
“How did we get here?”
My last laugh turns into a sigh and I tell you “I will jump and I will fall but I don't want to go through my drop without you. Don't let this be the choice that you regret at the bottom of the rope.”
That was the look. The look that makes me leap.
The look where you took your eyes from mine and you stared through the mist beneath you; the look when I knew you wouldn't jump.
So I let go and your hand slips from mine. I half sigh, half laugh at the sight of you hanging in front of me then I look up and shut my eyes.
I step forward as I say “It will always be you.”
With my arms outstretched either side of me, I take a step back and a deep breath in.
Then I run and jump off the edge without you and I plunge through the depths of the mist and unknown.
One year later and I'm still falling.
Still waiting for you to take that risk and jump with me.
Now fly.
And with this i give you a reason to fly.
(For M.R.)
It was then that I realised that if I ever wanted another shot then I would need you to relate to me.
I'd need to be on your level.
At the top of perfection.
But I thought about it and it became apparent that perfection doesn't need perfection.
Perfect needs average as without it, it would cease to exist.
It balances, counting on the average to stay in the middle, drifting as their support as the justification for it's title.
So I took this theory and I decided to attempt to prove how much you mean to me in the only way I know how; in the mediocrity of my writing.
This is how we got where we are now.
This is why I stand by your side and lower myself onto my front with my head overhanging the edge of the tower so all I can see is forward. The forward that is actually a seemingly endless drop straight to the ground; to inevitable death. With only mist in my eye line, obscuring me from seeing too far down the line.
You look at me and smile and the only certainty of my life doesn't seem so bad.
As you bend onto your elbows to raise yourself up again, you offer me your hand to help me back to your level and it reminds me of how I would have nothing without you.
Even though you left me in the middle, on average ground, you taught me the importance of climbing.
So here I am, at the top as I look straight ahead, into the endless blue that is divided by a rope that hangs in front of me and you place one hand on the rope and you wrap the other around my fingers.
I turn back towards you; the only person I truly respect.
The only person I've ever loved and I whisper into your ear;
“You taught me how to climb now I'll teach you how to fall.”
You laugh at me and my tendencies for the cliché because you know me too well.
“You can hold onto the rope and lower yourself down, checking your every move but the weight of us both will just leave you with raw hands and rope burn.”
But you're stubborn.
Always so stubborn.
You hold onto the rope and push off but with your hand tight in mine I stay planted to the tower and you hang there in the balance.
I ask you “Do you really want to live without risk?”
You laugh yet again.
“You won't feel the burn until you're at the bottom and you look back up. I'd rather let go and fly and not have the chance to look back and regret.”
I stand at the top of the tower alone, with both hands on yours and we laugh at each other.
“How did we get here?”
My last laugh turns into a sigh and I tell you “I will jump and I will fall but I don't want to go through my drop without you. Don't let this be the choice that you regret at the bottom of the rope.”
That was the look. The look that makes me leap.
The look where you took your eyes from mine and you stared through the mist beneath you; the look when I knew you wouldn't jump.
So I let go and your hand slips from mine. I half sigh, half laugh at the sight of you hanging in front of me then I look up and shut my eyes.
I step forward as I say “It will always be you.”
With my arms outstretched either side of me, I take a step back and a deep breath in.
Then I run and jump off the edge without you and I plunge through the depths of the mist and unknown.
One year later and I'm still falling.
Still waiting for you to take that risk and jump with me.
Now fly.
And with this i give you a reason to fly.
(For M.R.)