thoughts from 66A

took a flight to cali back
when manifesting was still cool.
afflicted by the customary indecisiveness
of chicken or beef,
by the sterile dryness of
red-eyes.

opted out of tin-wrapped airplane “food,” chose
a dream instead. opted out
of a small silver screening of crazy rich asians.

dreamt of being one instead.

dreamt of cerulean silk worms
on wilting orchids. dreamt
of emerald tigers knitting
mittens for the willowed fingers
of their keepers, quivering
from aspen gales.

dreamt of
crumb
ling.

here, suspended 40,000 feet
in the air & falling all the same,
no sunset awning billowing
through sticky window covers
can shade the static trembling
under my lids

but the vertigo presses in waves
of parallel pinstripes, breath
not yet knocked: stuck
& chambered.
choking.

pretzels or cookies?

now, startled, here i am
suspended 30,000 feet in the air—
mind dragging somewhere above me
a balloon, a little higher, spilling
like sunlight across a patch of land
i can’t name.

an attendant stares hard, searching
somewhere behind my eyes
for my choice. somewhere behind

my peeling economy seat
a child weeps, for how difficult it is
to have everything handed to you—
to go on hiatus from a life
you have not yet lived.

but i am bitter, crying on
for how difficult it is
to lack a larger sorrow
to cry about, other than
a dropped sippy cup & the rain
streaking the porthole windows.

why am i still crumbling, suspending?
10,000 feet above LAX.
thin air whistles, flittering.
unfiltered, behind & up
& around & back down, down,
into the pit of my mind—

i’m allergic to flaking—

crum
bling.

as wheels scrape runway, a child
crying stops crying at last
& claps, amid yawns & red eyes.

when i breathe, my breath pounds
into my spine, sweat cooling
as we ascend up & around & back
down, down again.

oh, and i’ll take pretzels
by the way.