Falling
by RunningRed NightBringer

Falling...falling...falling.

Falling from the Moon to the Earth. Down, down, down. Nose pointed forward, feet pointed towards home. Arms crossed over where your heart once was.

How far can you fall? How fast can you dive?

Falling like a rock. Like a teardrop? Are you being pulled towards the Earth, or did the Moon push you away? Does it matter anymore? You drop. And a tear crawls along your cheek, racing towards home.

Failing....failing...failing.

Did you think you would fall forever? Time slows to a crawl when your heart is full of loathing and self-pity, and the future before you is nothing but mud, mud, mud.

You weren't always falling. Always failing.

Once a being of light and life. Pleasure and purpose. Radiant and silver. You knew what you were and what you would do. The Moon was your Mother. Lover. Sister. Confidant. Your Home.

Forever falling. Toward muck and mud. Pain and shame. The shining silver of your fur is now dull and grey. Your carefree heart is now a lead-weight, dragging you down. Away from Joy.

Falling....falling...falling.

Your wings. Once a marvel. They extended no further than your fingertips, but could reach from horizon to horizon, feathers caressing time and space with a lover's need and a scholar's lust. A single feather could weigh against a soul. And you had a wingful. Two wingfuls! Now dingy like sackcloth. What use to weigh a soul, they can not even arrest your descent. Your fall. Can a feather wipe away the tears of humiliation?

Are you an Angel? Cast from the Heavens? No. For an angel is not a man. An Angel is a container of a hope, a dream, a reminder from All that Is to Those who Might Be. A sphere of liquid soap encasing a Summer Child's timeless joy. You are neither man nor angel.

Are you a Devil? Fallen and Angry? No. For a Demon is not the reverse of an Angel. Lucifer remained an Angel. A Star of Morning. An Angel who falls cannot bear to remain so high when his grief and pain pull him down. A Star of Mourning.

Failing....failing...failing.

You fell because you tripped. Not once, but often. Many times. Pain. Humiliation. It becomes less and less easy to raise your head and stand after you screw up time and again. Comforting to remain, to stop. To lie there. But when Life is a Journey, to stop is to Die....just a little. A bird cannot refuse to flap his wings and hope to remain aloft. He falls. And you fall.

You fall because it is easier to blind yourself to the pain you know you will endure, than to find the strength to rise above the pain you had already tasted.

You fall and you land. Mud. Earth. Muck. Mire. Shame and the Loathing from others and of self is neither pretty nor clean. You are no longer encased in fur, but a skin of mud and slime. Your body now defined by Filth. How hard it is to move, to walk, to raise an arm, weighed down by mud. Impossible to raise a wing. Are your feathers lathered in muck, or were they stripped off, one by one, as you fell into despair? Too painful to turn your head and look. Fear of the answer.

Mud covers your eyes, so all you see is brown, dirty, clouded.

Mud fills your ears, so all you hear is the sopping squish of your own labored, useless efforts.

Mud covers your skin, so you feel nothing. An armor that protects you from sunshine and clean air.

Mud fills your mouth, so everything you eat tastes bland and disgusting. So you either stop eating, or eat all the more, hoping the next bite, or the one after, will bring you a taste of pleasure. It never does.

You have stopped falling. There is nowhere left for you to descend into. You cannot feel it. All you know in your heart, all you will know, covered in mud, wings stripped, feet eternally reaching for home, is that you will continue to fall forever.