#06 Fall

When you’re a baby, falling doesn’t hurt as much. You’re closer to the ground, which is soft and padded with rubber mats and pillows. Adults are always nearby, in case you start throwing temper tantrums. And that’s the only pain you feel from falling as a baby; the frustration of failure.

But when you grow older, the ground becomes rough concrete with microscopic snares that will catch and tear into your skin. It starves for blood and makes scars that fade white but never disappear. As the ground becomes less forgiving, you learn to forgive yourself in spite of failure.

I don’t fall often. The passiveness of the action made it a risk factor for when I’m about to do something reckless — which I avoid. You might say that I haven’t lived. Most of my scars were from tripping while I ran down the hill in three-inch heels to catch a bus after school. Well. There’s is a long white scar on my left knee. I got that from sitting in the front seat of a surrey bike, which crashed down the slope of an underground walkway.

The thing about falling, however, is that you’re only aware of it after you’ve done it. Whether it is the pain of a bleeding knee or the sense of both panic and relief if you’ve managed to catch yourself, it is always the consequence that indicates the momentary blur.

Similarly, I only knew after that I had fallen for you.

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Stream of consciousness writing! Let me know if you think it worked 😂🙈