Empty Attics

 the edge snickered as I approached. gravity as arrogant as ever. 

these lives are full of levers and pulleys. cuts and folds. places we still need to visit. 

we shrug at the urgency that flesh insists. we weep at the apathy that time consents. climbing upon hope's crooked ladders. desperate to touch the future's crumbling ceilings. 

i didn't know her. hardly tried to. 

she was frail and kind and hopeless. a single whisper in a cacophony of screams. only alive when everything else fell silent. 

the staircase shuddered as I began my climb. I called her name. I looked in every corner, but she was gone again.