I am standing on the edge of a precipice.

I’ve set fires and burned almost everything on the way here, not knowing where I would end up. I curse myself for not having the foresight to just stand my ground and occupy the spaces where I felt at home. Instead, I ran from every confrontation and continued dropping matches every few steps never looking back for a second, until my past became a blinding white and orange inferno constantly propelling me forward out of fear.

I am standing on the edge of a precipice.

It is dark, save for the feverish dancing light pursuing me. I look down into the blank gray chasm beneath, taking in the void with a mixture of excitement and absolute terror. It calls to me. I call back, screaming at the top of my lungs and expelling every frenzied, exasperated wail I’ve been bottling up along the way into it’s stark valley until I am empty. It echoes throughout the expanse and slams back into me, magnified tenfold, the force bringing me to my knees, the howling wind summoning tears from my squinting eyes. I give into it, collapsing into the grass on the lip of the cliff, resting for what may be the last moment I have, for a while anyways.

I am standing on the edge of a precipice.

For just a second I stir and look back over my shoulder, greeted by the scalding, vibrant wind exploding from the fires that have chased me here. I chased myself here. A bead of sweat forms on my forehead, runs down my cheek and drops onto the ground, evaporating in seconds. The boiling blast of air from my past crashes into the cold shrieking wind of my future and swirls and ripples violently until it feels like a tornado is ravaging the ground I’m standing on. I climb to my feet, wobbling slightly at the force of the battling gusts, and look directly up into the sky, though I’m not sure what I expect to see. There’s never been anything there before.

I am standing on the edge of a precipice.

I am faced with a choice. I could scramble back into the fire, trying with every last bit of willpower I have to extinguish the myriad blazes I have trapped myself with until I get back to where I came from: some variant of “home”. On the other hand, I could swallow the fear I have and let it propel me forward into the vast nothingness ahead, and hope that I survive whatever landing is awaits me at the bottom, if there is anything at all. Maybe I’d fall forever, that’s part of the gamble I suppose. My choices brought me here, and now I must continue. Movement in any direction is progression. Will I double back and be licked by the fury of a thousand starved flames, or will I give myself to the chaos and the cold lack of something ahead?

I am standing on the edge of a precipice.