Last night I dreamt I was walking along a high, dirt road
Running along the rim of a forgotten cliff
Overlooking an old western town
As I stopped to ponder the multiple horizons
A man I have never met appeared
And walked to the edge
He stood there for some time, contemplating a world within a world
And then with a knowing look
He glanced over his shoulder at me
And jumped

I ran to save him
But I was too late
I returned to the side of the road, sitting with my head in my hands
And wept for the both of us

When I looked up there were two men at the edge
Whom I had never seen before
The flame of panic ignited in my gut
I ran out of instinct, out of fear
But before I could reach them their eyes met mine
And they disappeared over the rim
I collapsed
And the world blurred

And more came, a line that ran down the road
To the valley below
The whole town, it seemed, had come
Like lemmings
To die before my eyes
I tried to reach them, to grab hold of shirt tails and dress hems
But it was no use
One by one they looked at me and leapt
There was nothing I could do

I imagined the ground at the base of the cliff
And the pile of bodies forming there
A mountain of flesh I wasn't able to save
Their dead-staring eyes blaming me
With their blindness
But I would not look
Even after the last man dropped away
His butcher's apron billowing out around him
I remained in the dirt, immobile

I thought of you and the world I left you to
The protection you needed
The guidance you craved
When I thought of the hundreds of miles between us
My paralysis became complete

I stared out over the edge at the mountains
And mesas beyond
And watched as the sun made watercolors
Of them all