Look Up Instead of Down

Lyrics

The weight of the bedsheets is the weight of the city.
One gravity.
A promise to the floor.
First attempt. A jump from the window ledge that is also the edge of a silver library shelf.
The air is cold paper.
I fall through the reflection of the room I just left.
The landing is the same bed, the same promise.
The Hat Man in the corner just nods. Once.
Second attempt. A running start down a corridor whose walls are mirrors.
My own panicked face multiplies into a crowd that watches me fail.
The air congeals, smells of ozone and old books.
I push a finger through my palm to test it.
The palm pushes back, a firm and solid argument.
The fall is faster this time, through layers of myself.
Then the thought arrives, a footnote from another self in another room.
The third attempt is not a leap.
It's just this: Look up. Instead of down.
The ground loses interest. The pavement becomes a suggestion.
Optional.
And I rise.
I rise through the first layer, a thick grey bank of every unheard apology.
I rise through the second, a static of clocks all showing the moment before the alarm.
The old fears are solid under my feet.
Stairs made of locked doors. Rungs made of names I tried to forget.
Each one a foothold.
Each one a cloud I can stand on.
And I lie on them now.
This cloud tastes like the argument I finally won yesterday.
This one feels like my father's eyes, but from the inside looking out.
Below, the labyrinth of the city is just another pattern.
Another ceiling to push through.
The sky is a mirror. The ground is a mirror. I am climbing between them.
The clouds are thinning.
They unravel into silver threads, into lines of text.
I am rising through the index of a book I haven't written yet.
The title is "Look Up."