Eurydice Could Have Tried a Little Harder

by animalworkss

The one that you had loved in dreams fell five flights up the stairs of Purgatory, running to come see you before the escape routes closed for good. She never had a chance.

Repairs for said stairs had been necessary for some time, and too many obstacles barred her way. Jagged edges, slippery spills, half-hearted attempts to cover over the failings of those who tried to rise before; all found and forgotten, stretched across the inclined floor.

Atop the roof where the birds stopped to dump, you waited. Patience ran as thin as the horizon beyond your scope of senseless reach, as the world seemed pinched from such a point.

You could have peeked past the door leading to the stairs. You could have freshened up the air holding its breath for those inside the well of case-studied ascension, but the dangers of descension surmounted any attempt to even imagine what it’s like to climb.

And now you’re just as stuck as she, forever decaying amidst the space between the lives of Love, itself. Cracked and ambivalent, you leapt into an abyss without ever having taken a step.

.

.

.

Copyright Keli Birchfield 2013