helter skelter

Delusion stalks me like a lovelorn ex. Sometimes it feels like I camp at the edge of a kind of madness. It’s like all I would ever have to do is stop clinging on, just let myself descend.
I recall a red tower from my childhood. It is a helter skelter. I seem to live at the top of this metaphorical cliché. The stiff and shifting bristles of the mat press hard against my legs. I feel their scent in my nostrils – dry grass and old dust and cleaning products. (This cannot be a real memory.) I see the word ‘welcome’ in dark letters.
My childish pink hands grip the cold red metal of the chute. There is a novelty plastic ring on one of my fingers. The tiny grey face of an ape, or maybe a skull, girns back at me.
I live at the top. All I’d ever have to do is let go. Just stop holding on. Unflex those little hands. Slide. Lunacy would be waiting, its arms wide and soft.