Now I Leap

I have leaped the canyon's rift
Naught but once before.
Hundreds of feet below
View I the canyon floor.
Do I take the leap?
Should I ignore my inner war?

You are strong, she whispers.
Throbs my body's every fiber
In anger raging for its pain.
Knows she not the chasm widening,
Making riskier the gain?

You are strong, she murmurs
Again into my ear,
Though my fear I also hear.
I've crossed this chasm but once
Years, decades ago.
All my Inner ceased to glow.
This, that empathy I might know
For those who also fear.

You are strong, she says again.
I pause, shake my head.
For something that once
Breathed inside my heart
Now long since is dead.
Real love felt, bruised and bled.
Purity lost for words said and not said.
Focus shattered.  Pieces scattered
Across an ocean floor's bed.
Picking them up: tiny morsels fed
To a heart I once thought dead.
A heart changing slow from gray to red:
But what I've lost still is fled.

Behind and before me, the rabble wait
For my fall, spewing hate and anger.
"How dare you give an effort?
How dare you try?
Do you wish to hurt?
How many tears you've cried!
When will enough be enough?
Why do you still care?
Does it not hurt when someone stops
Not to help, but to stare?
How will you jump this chasm?
You are not what you were..."
That I can't win...
That I'll cave in...
That I've too much sin...
My enemies infer.

Again from the edge I turn away
Wishing I'd never seen the light-
Wishing this was not my fight-
I'd never quit before.
I'd not yet lost the war.
But what is now
Was not before.
I, and my heart so ragged...
Can we endure?
I've long lost remembrance of
The feel of being pure.

My foes' cries
Only get louder,
Hope tries to shed her light
Upon this doubter.
The words spoken before:
You are strong
Are again repeated.
Like a festering wound,
Begging healing so greatly needed,
I sense within myself
The touch that Hope has seeded.
In an inner garden that Hope, herself,
Has weeded.
Doing all she can to help me,
Hope has enabled me to see
All that I can and will be.

I've not endured
A decades-deep hell,
Only to relinquish this chance
To do and be well.
I am no voided shell.
I want my tale someone to tell.
I turn back.  I face my fate,
Whatever it may be.
One step, then two steps.
Going faster, so fast.
All enemies I pass
On my way to fate.
Somehow Hope's presence
Grows inside me.
My enemies have lied.
I have true strength inside.

The chasm's edge rushes toward me.
I see not the depths below.
Only my return from the past
To my destiny I now know.
Though the past is done,
My journey just begun,
My victory is already won.
Adrenaline into my veins seeps.
Two steps ahead lies chasm's deep.
Only the good from the past I keep.
Now, I leap.

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