This was originally a class assignment as a response to the poem "Sympathy" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. My English teacher asked the class to write about someone we felt sympathetic for, or someone about whom we wondered.

I used to live in Ithaca, New York, which is generally well known for two things: Cornell University and waterfalls, gorges, and hiking trails, many of which run through Cornell. In the 2009-2010 school year six Cornell students committed suicide by intentionally jumping off the bridges that crossed the gorges around Cornell. In response, Cornell put fences around all the bridges as a short-term way to stop the problem - and the fences are still there today.

I cannot possibly imagine what could push someone to take his or her life by jumping off a bridge.

This poem has two stanzas, five lines per stanza, and ten words per line. I found working under this structure more stimulating and challenging than constraining, surprisingly.