Launching myself from the building,

Arms unfurled in the air, wind peeling back the edges of my skin, unravelling my hair.

I am nothing more than air particles streaming through the lower layers of the atmosphere,

A spectrum in a body suit.

Nothing between me and the Earth, no tantalizing clouds, no sudden dis-collapse of wings

To keep me from breaking.

I am fragile.

Shattered glass.

Little bits of porcelain that get under your fingernails and make you bleed.

I am collapsed veins,

A spiderwebbed mirror,

A piece of history that lies forgotten under the sewage.

I lift my chin against the screaming air, raise my eyes to the sky.

I am part of and apart from life, both in and out,

Next to and in between.

I open the old, dingy box, hide myself within the folds,

Clamber out from under the tattered flaps and emerge back into the world

That I have shunned, that I have loved, and will always embrace.

Take a hammer to my skin.

I will bruise.  My skin will break.

But, in the end, I will be nothing more than a wisp that bleeds out of your grip

And do jubilant cartwheels on the lightning struck path.