Criss Buzzalino

The Cliff’s Edge 

I stand there, wind in my hair

The cliff’s edge

A sheer cliff with stalactites and white waves to meet me at the bottom

I think back to a life a once had, the friends I once knew, those I once loved

Who will be there to meet me at the bottom?

I hear a heartbeat. It’s mine.

Pounding blood into my ears, toes, shoulders, and chest.

I feel my feet leave the grassy cliff 

my soul bounding into the air

I’ve jumped. 

And then…

nothing. 

quiet.

I hear my mother. She sounds like bliss in my silence.

She is singing. 

The sounds of kitchen bustle in my downstairs

I think back to that which I once fought for. People, rights, beliefs.

My brothers, sister, and siblings who are killed for who they are, for things they can’t change.

Bills that are passed to prevent our existence.

I open my eyes. 

I see my room.

My desk, my bed, the poster on my wall, the homework on my computer screen.

Evening. It’s evening.

My eyes search for the cliff I was just on.

The promise of release at the bottom of that cliff.

Alone. 

It has been 11 months of isolation. 

11 months of despair.

11 months of the creeping thoughts growing ever closer to reality. 

Not reality, but ever-so-slightly not real, as I have felt for the past 

11 months.

The sickness still spreads.

For 11 months, cloth donned on our faces to protect us

The question continues: will it end. ever? 

The silence is indescribable

Everything feels so loud. 

But so quiet.

The world feels frozen, unmoving.

Streets, abandoned

Schools and stores, closed

Everything is desolate

and so, so quiet.

The soft sounds of Italian love ballads rise from downstairs. 

Andrea Bocelli serenades me and my mother from her speaker to break our silence. 

My days, my 11 months filled with digital screens and my constricting bedroom.

My mother introduced me to Rebecca.

Every week, digitally meeting 

Talking about the cliff, and the silence

We spoke for 6 months more. 

I don’t see the cliff anymore.

I don’t feel the harsh grass anymore nor do I see the sharp and inky black bottom anymore.

I feel better. 

The cliff was lonely, unsafe, uneasy.

My ears, now filled with sounds of the world, sounds of school, sounds of my passions.

It had been 1 and a half years since my last time on the cliff.

I may see it again, but this time, I’m prepared.