i've spent a lifetime falling.

when i was small, i was clumsy.
i tripped over everything
grazed knees and band-aids
graced my pudgy, childish form

by the time i was eleven
i was taller and slimmer
but still short.
my arms felt too long
and i knocked over pottery,
slipping on untied laces
or fallen splashes of paint

when i was thirteen,
i fell in a good way.
i fell for you so hard
it felt like stumbling off a cliff,
praying you would catch me

you didn't, because you didn't know i had fallen.

after that, i fell differently.
i stained my hair blue
and started drinking when i was fifteen.
it was three years before i was offered cannabis,
by my new friends

i fell out of my parents' lives
i fell away from my true friends
i fell into unemployment
i fell into gambling and drug abuse.

two years later, i was homeless and bankrupt.
twenty years old, and i had no future.

and then you fell back into my life.
you were a whirlwind of colour and light
you helped me off the streets and into a job
i somehow got through medical school
became a doctor.

i've spent a lifetime falling.
but you, love, taught me to fly.