On The Ledge - By Adam Decker - Blackout Poetry By Elrich Tjung

Blackout Poetry Title - Words Before Suicide

I am standing on the ledge of a skyscraper, one hundred and one floors up, on a beam about ten inches wide.  The toes of my shoes hang over.  I am roughly a thousand feet from the ground over three football fields away.  It is night and the traffic below looks like little miniature cars with battery-powered lights.  I can see people below—coming in and out of shops, haling cabs, walking.  But they don’t look real.  They are an inch tall.

            I am pressed against the glass behind me, trying not even to breathe.  One mistake—one little slip—will send me to my death.  My hands are sweating even though it is February in Chicago.  Even though it is night.  The monstrous structure behind me roars every so often.  I am amazed at how something so massive moves so easily when the wind kicks up.  At any moment, I fear I will be swept along by the breeze, into the night.  Gone forever.

            Three minutes ago I was hanging off of the beam instead of standing on it—let me back up even further.  I started this interruption of a journey inside the skyscraper, in a nice warm room overlooking the Windy City’s horizon at sunset.  The entire one hundred first floor is my brother’s home.  He designed this building.  He was gracious enough to let me use it, to propose to Holly.  It is a beautiful place: marble floors, hundreds of crystal lights, windows for walls on all sides.