the tallest peak is scaled - it's been a long hard road looking up - i beg your forgiveness, do you love me? why is love always at my fingertips, but never close enough to grasp?. looking down - even in the moonlight... the water sparkles and dances and yet from up here i can see my reflection. i am awed. taking one last look around - the sights, the sounds, will i remember them? will they come with me? passersby - they don't see me. but then no one ever has. he doesn't even know the color of my eyes. sounds of wheels and horns - kids yelling from their cars...." hey, chicky, chicky!" traffic slowing.. radios blaring... i hear my song in the distance...."ohh child things are gonna get easier" it hasn't.... trying to remember the day i was born - who can? why was i? was it hard then too? trying to survive - the cold outside. the cold inside. i wish she told me she loved me. did she, when she looked at me for the very first time? she stood here once - on this side with me buried deep inside her. debating. wonder what it was that changed her mind? the swaying of the bridge - almost in time with the music. there is always a beat in life. and then there is the beat, the one that drowns out every thing good in your life. the breeze is just awesome. it beats against your clothes. the flapping almost tickles. I wonder, the moisture, is that rain or what clouds feel like? hmm......it feels so good. exhilerating. oh shit - i can see my house from here! i really can! wonder what is going on inside it? arguing? plenty of that. laughter? so little of it these days. will they be angry i didn't say why? will they cry? or just breathe a sigh of relief? i'm told to ask for help. i did. it fell on deaf ears. and hard hearts. my favorites list - i want to think of them one last time. blue, midnight blue. peagasus, why the hell do they always think i like the unicorn? hugs, i love to give them but get none in return, those limp arms around me. patronizing. the waltz, i love to dance to the waltz, or a tango. he would never do it with me. so i did it with the broom, the mop. my camera, even if they don't see what i see i still take the picture....like tonight, the moon , the stars.... the water.... oh the water how it sparkles..i wonder if it will come out exactly as i see it. --click, another, click. swings, that feeling of flying. always makes me feel like a child again. that freedom that comes with childhood. too bad when we grow up we lose that part of ourselves. bubbles, they make fun of me because i love them. but they really do make people smile! too bad i could never get them to. my first cup of coffee, outside as the sun comes up, watching the world wake up. sunsets on a beach, hmm...i've never shared that experience with anyone wonder what that would've been like? do i free fall -do i dive - the height doesn't frighten me,on the contrary, i like it up here! do i free fall or do i dive.......will i touch bottom? is it true you die before you hit bottom? do i open my arms willingly and just...let...go. Or do i do the perfect swan? haha, i would probably do a belly flop, there is nothing graceful in this kid!! I know you - i dreamt of you. the book large and open. with dates and times. the moment... the how, who, what, where and why. why do i have to get my answers this way? we all get in though. don't we? forget it- there it is again! in the distance! "ohh child things are gonna get easier" you know, maybe that song is right after all ! it always comes on the radio at the moments i need it most.. no, it has to get easier, so what if i'm alone! i don't need anyone but me anyway! so what if they don't see or hear me! I know! When i get the pictures developed, i'll sit them down and tell them a story. and if they still don't listen, i will go and make my own story...my own life..... it has to get easier...... it has to...... once again i scale the wall - wow! look at all those trucks! oh my god! they really make the bridge shake and sway.... let me get..my.. camera..out of my hand, get it on the walkway... just squeeze my hand through the rail and then i can lift my leg over. if i can just get my foot over. I didn't realize there is so much moisture up here. didn't realize it's so slippery. oh my DEAR GOD! Nooo.... not now please! air is all around me- i can hear my heart beat.. my camera strap, my camera strap, it's the only thing i can see...God, will they know I was going to come home? will they know i how much i love them? Keep them safe, God, Please keep them safe warm and happy, Will you tell them i slipped and ......... ~~~~~~~ Last year a young girl jumped to her death from this bridge. It was the night before the prom, her date had told her only hours before she was going to the prom with a boy instead. Her lovers timing seemed to me, cruel. A couple of weeks after this had happened I stood here wondering how it was that this beautiful young girl could not see all that was before her. After all, she was 17 there would be other loves, love more deserving of what she had to offer. That this wasn't the end of the world. I was to find out that following October. The act of betrayal compounded by the cruelty of timing is a sense of despair I had never known. I came back to this spot with new eyes. Yes, I wanted to die, but not in the literal sense of the word. But what I did discover was that to a young person, there world is falling apart. It is every bit as tragic. I knew what I was feeling, here I was an adult and the pain was devastating, I couldn't begin to imagine what she had felt given her sexual orientation (the acts of cruelty by fellow students, fighting for and winning the right to take a female as her date to the prom) compounded by her youth. Then there is me, always hopelessly hopeful, wondered, what if. What if those that had attempted suicide had such a glimmer of hope, had decided they wanted to live! For at that very moment, that precise moment, it no longer is a suicide but an accidental death. Those of us left behind may or may not ever know it. But God does. I'd prefer to think this happened for Jenny. Because I can't imagine that after all she had gone through that in the end she would never know love. Love of the truest kind. God's love.