Catch Me

Sunlight filters down from on high, bouncing from chrome and steel. It warms the soil and the skin and the blacktop worn grey from tires. Cars roll along, engines roaring discordant challenges, wheels screeching around corners in impromptu races between howling men and women with too much time but too little time left between their now and their destination and somewhere in the middle of it all is You. Ripples wash through the grass in emerald waves, the wind tousling the long blades gently, unrelenting. Detached seedlings rise up and over, weaving from plains to cities, alighting on windows shut tight to hold in the radio and television and the hateful shouts of two people with love that has soured like milk, curdling and separating and retching from the loss of the whole and once I believed that was You. A crow caws. Claws click on overreaching street lights, casting shadows on the pedestrians below. The intermingling texting and tapping, shouting and snapping, smooths out into a flatline of ambience with regular pulses of an abrupt laughter or angry bark or anxious wail of a child reaching out to find something or someone that will listen, will understand, will hold them close and calm them and I remember long ago when that was You. You, who was always there. You, who surrounded me in your glow. You, who caught me before I had a chance to fall. You, who I can't find anymore. You, who found me when I was at my lowest, cut through the radiation of noise of sound of calamity and laid your hands on mine. You blocked out the vehicles and winds of change and taught me how to direct the flow to move in my own direction and together we ruled the world for eighteen months. You found me when I was at my lowest, and after you elevated me to heights I didn't know were possible, you dropped me. I'm falling now. I'm falling and I've been falling for years and I know once you would have caught me but it's been so long I can barely remember the warmth of your glow or the pressure of your hand on my back and I can see the ground and I need you to catch me. I need you to catch me. I need you to catch me. I need