The Free Fall

I once stood at the edge of myself.
It was the moment I first knew I was not the me I wanted, and what being that me would cost.
What I would have to give up to be that me,
To breathe through their lungs, to see through their eyes, to find that me in the mirror each morning.
I thought about the price I'd pay, to be that me.
And I thought, for a moment, about raising my arms,
Like wings behind me,
And falling free into the me that I had found.
I thought of feeling the world with different hands,
Feeling trees and grass on different ground,
Feeling different feet upon different lands.
A different path down different roads,
And how I would walk if that path I chose.
I thought for a moment about the free fall.
I thought of what it would be like, all in all.
I thought, for a moment, about where I'd land,
And who I'd be,
And what I'd be, when I became that me.
I stood, for that moment, at the edge that divides us, that me and I.
The person I am, and the person I could have been.
But to be that me, the me that I am would burn away.
That nothing is free, at the end of the day.
That if I went, this me couldn't stay.
And I thought, for but a moment, about how easy it would be to devote myself to being that other me.
To leaning forward just enough,
To letting go and falling free for a while, and becoming who I could have been.
I thought twice, and then I thought harder, and thought again.
I thought, for a good long moment, about taking that step, and what it might bring.
But I never did.
Because I wouldn't be me anymore, not really, not the me that I am.
I'd be some other me, no better or worse, just different.
I thought about how change can set one free.
And maybe I'd have been free in a way, that other me.
But I knew in that moment... that I couldn't pay the toll,
I simply couldn't afford the fee.
I couldn't cross that line,
And thus I'd never be.