you cannot tell if it is ascent or descent, either way it’s happening too fast. within your body the lighter forces that wish still to rise wrestle with gravity, your ears do strange things. you expect to drown in a sea of clouds or to be consumed by the sunset flames but you aren’t. and you know what it is about us that leads us to associate heights with death by falling, you know where we’ve been. but, it is different here. yet, you see the cracks in the sky wide enough for you to fall through and may already have and, you can’t help but picture yourself freefalling to the lowest, adamantine ground where everything is subject to splattering.