Walking the Red Line

I’ve lived my life walking down a red line, my life spent balancing to stay alive. I fear if I fall to either side, it’ll end poorly for me. Sometimes I think I’m maybe meant to dive all in, but which side do I choose?

The pit below me looks so dark and I fear what’ll happen if I lose myself to one. I’m waiting for the day I can be certain of what awaits below the line I’m walking. Will it be truth or will I be punished for what I thought I knew?

I thought I knew where I was headed— a life that led to that little girls dreams. She longed to sing and dance and to work with dolphins; to draw and write— well, I guess she was right about one of those things.

I write my way down this red line, wasting words to stay alive. I want to dive, I do; take a leap of faith and trust the Lord will catch me when I do. But what if He’s not the one waiting for me in the pit? What if it’s the pit of hell? What if it’s all I knew too well at the age of ten when I wrote my name on the mirror and said “Who are you?” She knew I would end up here. She knew more than I do, standing up here.

And she still knows more than I, and she still lives somewhere inside my prison of a body and a mind; she knows the truth about this red line. For one end has her bound, wrapped around her wrists and her calloused fingertips gripping the ends, hoping she can fight the pull this red line has on me. She knows exactly where it’s taking me.

You see, I’ve spent my whole life walking down this red line, balancing to stay alive; I’m so focused on what’s on either side of the fall— I don’t see where it’s taking me. Not too far ahead of me, now, the other end of the red line is intertwined between fingers belonging to a large, dark figure. The red splits off like veins; he holds them like puppet strings, and if I were to look back at where I came from, I’d see nothing… because the line is tied to me. In silence, it tells me where to go; my mind is not my own. I swear, I’m being pulled by the one who weaved it into me; who stitched me up so I wouldn’t bleed; so no one would see what he did to me— He tore me open and sewed this red line into my heart, my lungs, my mind— My tongue speaks words it would never say if it were free. My heart beats melodies it does not want to sing. I breathe and cry in harmony with the pain he created in me. And even though I know this now, thanks to the little girl at ten, and six, and four… I still don’t know for sure.

So I’ll keep walking down the red line, wasting my life, balancing to stay alive— Maybe I could escape if I fell. Maybe it would hurt like hell, but then I’d drown in the red as the fall rips out the threads he left to hold me together. It would be better if I keep going, head down, never knowing the truth, until I make it to the end the puppeteer is leading me to; until I make it back to the hands my soul’s been tied to.

Yes, I’m walking down a red line. He knew I’d do it to survive.