Dangerous Thoughts

Walking along a stone bridge,
my hand grazes the side
moving up with the posts
and down with the rail
I imagine the ground beneath me
if I took a sail

I don't look over the waist-high edge
I don't look beneath me
but I hear the cars whizzing past
so fast if I stepped out
there would be no time
and before they knew I was there
I wouldn't be anymore

The rain falls though unseen
silent drops upon my coat
wet on the ground
ignored by the world
it's too dark for observing
too dark for details
save those bathed in the yellow
of old and creaking lamp posts
the cracks in the sidewalk,
but only those
lighted, as they've always been.
the others don't exist
but you;ll feel them


I've never been really tempted
but tonight I am alone
I'm wet; have no direction
just trying to get home
I've been walking now for ages
through streets shadowed and bare
Cat calls and empty pages
my heart tries not to care
You haven't said a single word
not even one in anger
Concern fills me like a shallow ditch
worry; impending doom
so many things I could do
but how will I know which?

no tiny peek
no little glance
I will give no chance
to choose to try
see what its like
to fall beneath this blackened sky
to make these hours
stretch into days
and jump with no one there

I do not look
but I still  know
what grey and green lies down below
It's concrete steps and iron bars
mushy grass next to old cars

I'm not tempted, really
I don't really want to know
but I'll think some more
maybe forever
of the hardness of that blow
my body on the ground
in some big odd heap
with no one else around
I'll slip away to sleep

someone will find me
at some point
with their eyes or with their tires
and if I had no one to live for
that's what I'd want to do
I want to feel the wind
I want to hear the crunch
I want to know the damage
and if I can take the pain
would it kill me quickly
or will my landing be soft?

If I had nothing to live for
I might try it,
for fun.