The Gap

At the bottom of it, there’s no light; only darkness.
It’s a wretched place.
Nobody escapes the gap. Eventually, we will all fall in.
Some leap willingly.
With mad dreams of making it to the other side,
where more suckers for the gap await — what were they thinking?
Bravado like a Japanese fighter pilot,
smoke in the cockpit,
with a broken-off tail, fire spewing from the engine on the right wing,
Careening through the sky towards it’s target.
You know what I’m talking about.
What I’m alluding to.
They all know it.
It’s in every scream, every flail,
every bead of sweat that collects on the hot, desperate foreheads,
whilst they cling to the edge.
And it’s the hope that fucks them up.
That drives the fear.
Whatever else was back there,
their former lives far beyond the horizon,
doesn’t count as hard currency — here,
doesn’t count as hard currency, when,
your fingernails strike into cold granite.
And as the next in line, is crowded forward to the edge,
he reluctantly step on that man’s fingers,
till he freefalls too.
They should’ve called it the chasm, but they called it the fuckin’ gap,
Don’t know why. Take it up with management.
Soon, they’ll put a fuckin’ McDonalds near by,
and fine you for taking too long, before,
well,
you know.

That gap.
I stare it at it from my window everyday,
whilst sipping hot coffee,
casting scorn & laughing at the perpetual line of tourists,
that flock to it.
Yet I dread deep down knowing,
that it’ll be my time soon.
It’ll be my fucking time soon. I’ve marked it on the calendar.

My neighbour’s, up on their ranch have started charging for tours to The Gap.
They don’t get too far.
You don’t want to.
What they sell is the mythos of it.
Their customers don’t care.
They just want to be told lies of comfort,
and leave in their SUV’s with a few liters of unhomogenized milk.
Because you can’t buy that kind of experience, back in the city.

I had a knock at my door one time.
The local council sent a land surveyor to the people who lived around The Gap.
He made me feel like I was stupid for wanting to live so close to it,
like nobody else does.
He probably gave the neighbours that treatment too,
yet they still accepted the land rates we paid.
I told him, it wasn’t his business why I lived here.
We stood by the kitchen and looked out at The Gap.
We sipped hot coffee and cast our scorn,
and laughed at those idiots down there.
And the surveyor put his cup in my sink,
I saw a flash of dread across his face — but only for an instant.
Then he left.
The Government got what they came for,
but he didn’t like what he personally got.

I miss the city, when I live in The Gap.
But I miss The Gap when I live in the city.
Really — I fucking hate The Gap.
Fear of the unknown.
It might be nice.
I wouldn’t know.
I don’t go down there any more.
I’m only telling you what it’s like.

We have Chinamen, Israelis, Austrians, Australians go down to The Gap.
They look so competitively at each other,
Like they all own this place.
Then tumble off the edge down The Gap,
probably fighting about,
who owns it down there, like assholes.

I’m not happy about this place any more.
I hear they plan on building an elevator on the side of it.
No idea how they plan on getting to the bottom,
but the blueprints exist, and the funding is there.
Guess it was commerce that we eventually needed.
Personally, I think it’s over the top,
and believe it takes the fun out of this.
But hey. You decide.

The gap.
That’s what it is.
An advertisement.
You get what you deserve here.
Which is nothing.