“Trust Fall” by Paul Watsky

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Paul Watsky

TRUST FALL

There is no scientific evidence … the game builds any trust among participants.
—Wikipedia

This exercise must be vol-

untary. It’s impermissible to trust-

fall somebody else, like God

did Job—shoved him arsy-

versy onto a shit

pile then garnished the poor

sap with boils. Not,

we hope, Yahweh’s signature

moment, and not to be repeated

alone at home with your baby

sister, as in, Don’t

trustfall little Trudi without strict

parental oversight. No

defenestrations either! It’s

different to meet up with cooperative

adult friends and trust fall each

other sequentially, standing

straight, feet on floor, arms

crossed over chest, then top-

pling backward (deep

breath) onto ex-

pectant sup-

port. Aaah! (sigh) How

reassuring, one’s universe. Let’s

do it again, higher, stage-

dive the pulsating cosmos. Soon

we’ll be ready to trust that

gravity will relent, and human

nature. Old age retreats

beyond recall as we trust-

fall into harmonious

white light.

—from Rattle #44, Summer 2014

__________

Paul Watsky: “From age 15 to 30 I wrote poetry because I imagined it gave me social status—yeah, really—and it became part of my identity as a college English teacher. After the job went away, traumatically, I wrote hardly any poems during the years I rebranded myself as a Jungian analyst. But in my late forties I resumed, with more consistent effort and focus, having realized it’s something I must do simply in order to feel OK.”