The Light in the End (Poem)

His scraped knees and gangly legs hung over the edge,
heels knocking against chipped stone,
laces double-tied in two careful loops.

The hole spanned two meters,
deep as an endless eye's pupil,
no iris, no lashes, no brows,
cruelly confident where the boy had none.

In his hands he held a ball of light,
shimmering, swimming, sifting illumination from dark,
swirling in the reflections of his deadened eyes,
this ball hung suspended between palms.

At moments it weighed as worlds would,
at others feathers and hope in limbo,
and still others it would spin confusing contours,
dragging the boy's glance downwards.

Within lay memories and musings,
insults and inebriations,
failures and the strands of gossamer separating them from happiness,
strands thrumming in the silence.

It murmured nervously as the boy's face shifted towards nothing,
arms outstretched,
extending the slim arc of bouncing light closer to the middle,
throwing his face into inkier depths.

Hopes never make a sound as they fall,
and the boy cocked his head to the side,
as the orb slipped its hold
and quickly dragged its light down into the darkness,
clicking the shutter shut in his mind.