"The funny thing about climbing

Is that everyone watching from below

Just sees someone going up

They don't see the part where you've been gripping the same rock for three hours

Too scared to move

Too tired to go back down

Just hanging there

Smiling if anyone looks up"

I've been climbing since before I can remember

Everyone said look how high you've gone

And I kept going because that's what you do

When going up is all you've ever known

But somewhere between the ground and here

My hands stopped feeling like my own

And the view that was supposed to mean something

Just looks like a long way down to home

And if you see me at the top

You'd think I had it figured out

You'd see the height and not the shaking

You'd see the summit not the doubt

There was no cliff that you could point to

No ledge that had my name

And yet I've been falling the whole way up

And arriving just the same

The altitude is strange up here

Everything is thin and cold

I keep reaching for the next grip

Like I was always told

Good things are happening around me

I can see them, they're right there

But my fingers are too numb to hold them

And I'm too high up to care

Did I earn any of this

If I can't feel my hands?

Does the height mean anything

If I don't know where I stand?

The thoughts come in like vertigo

I know exactly what they say

I've heard them at every altitude

They follow me all the way

So I keep climbing

Because stopping looks like falling

Keep moving, keep going

Keep answering when they're calling

But the mountain is patient

And the mountain doesn't care

And it knows the difference

Between someone climbing

And someone frozen there