Enlightenment 12: The Raise — Summary

Help me, I'm falling, And I might crash, When I hit the bottom. Someone grab my hand, Give me hope, Or at least a parashoot, I might die. But no one's here, To see my distress, But that doesn't mean, That it's not real. Someone grab my hand, Give me hope, So I may survive, This terrible fall. If a tree falls in a forest, And no one is there, To see it, It does make a sound. So please grab my hand, Give me hope, Before I hit, Rock bottom. The ground seems to get, Bigger and bigger, Or is it closer and closer? I knew that my end was near, As is the ground, I braced myself, For the death of a hopeless soul. But wings burst from my back, Outstretching and showing their beauty, These are my wings, The manifestation of my hope. I stretch my wings, And sore through the air, Whipping through the clouds and sky, Safe from my doom. My black wings blend with the night, I realize that I wasn't falling before, I was escaping, Coming up and raising, From the land beneath the earth where I was born.

Show the whole poemHide the poem

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

The speaker begins in panic, imagining a long fall toward certain death and begging for someone to grab their hand. Nobody comes. The speaker argues that being unseen doesn't make the pain any less real, borrowing the old question about a tree falling in an empty forest. The repeated plea, "Someone grab my hand, give me hope," builds a sense of desperation, and the short, clipped lines make it feel like a gasping rush.

Then the mood flips. Just as the speaker braces for the end, wings burst from their back, and they describe these as "the manifestation of my hope." Hope doesn't arrive from outside; it was inside all along. The speaker soars, and the black wings blend into the night. In the final lines, the speaker realizes the fall was really an escape, a climb out of the "land beneath the earth" where they were born. The poem moves from terror to relief, and finally to a quiet, hard-won pride in rescuing oneself.

Read also

More by Heather Moczydlowski

All poems
SadHeather Moczydlowski

Bird Cage

I don't know why or how, but there's an invisible bird cage surrounding me. Limiting where I can go. Nothing is actually stopping me. It's almost like an invisible force that I can't stop.
ContemplativeHeather Moczydlowski

Blackness or Color?

There is nothing but black, Black is all I see around me, Maybe I have gone blind? But the black doesn't feel like darkness,
AngryHeather Moczydlowski

Cursed Memory

People say to forgive and forget, I always I wondered why, To forgive someone who's wronged you, To forget the deed they committed,