Let Me Tell You A Story

Let me tell you a story of a girl who sat atop her world,

where the mountain-top views were all she dared to know.

“The valley isn't real,” she told herself then.

“There was no climb, and there will be no descent.”

But pride was her folly; and naivety, her flaw.

The gods coveted her throne—so high in the air.

They plotted her demise, and inevitable was her fall.

Down to the earth she plummeted, landing outside the gates of Hell.

Bruised and bloodied, scared and scarred;

she made herself invisible, wrapped inside a protective shell.

And there she sat for years to come,

conversing from within to hapless passersby without.

From her lowly abode, she was forced to admit

that valleys are as real as the mountain summits.

She could even remember her valley before,

and the work of the climb she once had endured.

There in her shell, the memories came

of what it was like on that other valley floor.

So nothing is safe, she thought with a sigh.

No valley; no summit; so I might as well hide.

Then a challenge was put forth from someone outside:

“Why don’t you try and reach again for the sky?”

“I've been there,” she said, from deep within her shell.

"And all that happens is I crash back down to Hell."