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This past weekend, I witnessed a girl fall down a flight of stairs at a party. Don’t worry, she was okay, but it was in that moment where I realized how beautiful humanity is. She was an angel, a beautiful human; one who I was sad alcohol had done this to. Her face told me she wasn't having fun anymore. She laid there, slightly contorted, confused at how everything changed so quickly. I wanted to help her, more than just by simply sitting up her limp frame; I wanted to clear her head by pulling the alcohol from her body. I wanted to give her water and have her feel like herself again.
We as humans are so incredibly beautiful...capable of so much creation, and innovation and light. But when I looked into this girl’s eyes, they too had fallen. I saw how alcohol had taken her light. Right then, I was inspired -- inspired to write. I needed to bring some light to this situation—that we as college students inevitably live in an alcohol community. Our idea of fun has become drinking, which is a scary concept because alcohol can morph us. And not always in a way which such amazing creatures like ourselves deserve to be morphed. With all of this spinning through my mind, I wrote a poem, of the angel who fell that night:
You are an angel,
Put the bottle down.
Please don’t cry
You can think so much deeper
You can speak so much clearer
Just not now—
Shhh
I know you’re asking why,
And it’s okay to cry
It’s answers you want,
I know
You’ll get them just
Put the bottle down.
Sit down
You’ve fallen down—
too much
You are confused I can see, because
All you can see
are other angels,
Flying and consuming…
You wanted to be that high,
You were that high
How’d you end up here?
Too incredibly close with the floor,
Here, the only secure thing
In a spinning room.
You feel sick.
The other angels tell you to
Do it,
You’ll feel better
Two fingers
You’ll feel better
You do it.
You feel the same.
You beg them to fly again,
It was so nice
And now it’s not.
It was worth it
The other angels tell you,
It was worth it—
Bottle in hand—
We all do it,
They say.
But you don’t want to
“Do it”
But you do.
You just want to fly.