Hold Me Down

I learned to fly before I learned to walk,
spent my whole life with my neck craned back,
eyes on something no one else could see.

You kept reaching for me.
I kept drifting higher.

The air thins up here. I know that now.
But I forgot how landing works,
forgot the weight of my own feet,
the sound of anything that isn’t wind.

Decades blurred beneath me—
days into weeks into years I never felt pass,
moving at a speed that swallowed everything whole.

And you were there.
Every time I climbed too high,
you were the hand that pulled me back,
the gravity I cursed and needed.

Now my body rests quiet
but my mind still floats,
still drifts into clouds I can’t come down from.

Hold me now.
Not down. Just here.
Just long enough to remember
what the ground feels like.