The blood rushes to my head,

and suddenly the world looks wrong—

the sun dripping from the ground,

the sky buckling like a drunk

in a parking lot, staggering

into the arms of a stranger.

I think I’m falling,

but maybe I’m climbing.

The way my heart lurches,

it feels like both at once—

a ladder splitting apart,

the rungs breaking into birds,

their wings frantic,

their cries sharp enough to cut air.

I’m upside down,

but this isn’t new.

I’ve been walking on ceilings for years,

talking to ghosts who call my name

like a question they forgot the answer to.

I’ve kissed mirrors

and felt the glass bite back,

every crack like a roadmap

leading to places I’ve never been,

or maybe places I’ve been trying to escape.

What does gravity want from me?

I’ve tried to surrender—

offered it my bones,

my breath,

the weight of my body,

the heaviness of being alive.

But it keeps pulling,

tighter and tighter,

until I’m spinning in circles,

a coin deciding

which side it wants to land on.

There’s a boy in the corner of my vision—

his hands full of flowers,

his mouth full of rain.

He’s laughing like he knows something

I don’t,

or maybe like he knows something

I do,

but forgot how to name.

If I flip again,

what will I find?

A new sky?

A softer ground?

Or maybe just another version of myself,

hands reaching up—

or is it down?—

begging for the fall to be enough.