I want you to fall for me, as if you slipped at the top of ten flights of stairs.
Like you tried to grab the rungs for the banister, desperately clutched at them, only to realize they are slick with something and you can’t get a grip.
Sliding down the stairs, wooden, no carpeting, just hard edges to knock the breath from your body.
Steep as they are, you ended up going head over heels, tumbling down, elbows thrown into walls, fingernails dug into any surface where they could find purchase.
But to no avail.

The fall has claimed you, there’s no way to stop it, and you’ve still got six flights left.
So maybe you close your eyes, begin to accept it for what it is, a cruel twist of fate.
Maybe you lean into each turn of your body, let yourself meld with the stairs, momentarily, before tearing off toward your final destination.
Slowly, as slowly as it can be for the speed at which you fall, you learn to love the lack of oxygen;
the way it feels when you catch the stairs so hard your eyes water, fly open, and reveal the world again.
The landing at the bottom is concrete, and it looks soft, like a proper resting place, cool and welcoming to your aching, bruised body.

Little did you know, as you were falling I came through the door at the end of the hall. Stepped through and heard your racket, coming from on high, somewhere I couldn’t ascertain.
So I ran, bolted like a scared dog, for the landing of the stairs, I had to see what was coming.
And as we both reached the landing, I could see what was really going on.
I know now that you’re falling, and I’ll be damned if I don’t catch you.