we all revert to children in the sky

when everyone you love is somewhere else

I BEGIN FEELING LESS HUMAN the night before a flight. As time moves forward, I resort to the mammal that I am: pack drive walk and the airport air sets in and every time I glance into a reflective surface I cringe away from it. Strangers. So many of them. When did the world birth so many people? And the sweat, the dirt, the collective confusion and low-grade flu symptoms. It is all discomfort, here.

We all revert to children in the sky: we look around with wide eyes - some clutch the hand rests, others watch the Earth grow further and further away with a sort of trepidation, and me? I am already half-drugged waiting for the soft-spot of relief. The sweet in-between of Earth and Heaven. Purgatory. I wait for the pills to hit like an addict, knees up against my cheeks, rocking back and forth back and forth back —

A man in the row across from me prays. Clever boy, where better to bow your head, set your palms against your knees, and whisper to God? Of course it is here: in the sky: where God is most likely to hear.

It feels like play-pretend. Iron tube in a part of the Earth we have no reason to be in. Fish out of their tanks with water bottles for breathing. We’re bubbling about, sputtering. Even the food is imitation, almost-but-not-quite, you perk up at the sound of the flight attendant because it’s the closest you can get to home and sweetness. Hot, steamy dishes; plastic food a child drew and it came to life in the back cabin. It’s all unnatural. A dream. You stick the plastic fork into the plastic meat.

It’s loud. It’s cold. Your eyes are drooping, you’re thirsty. The drugs are kicking in, and you realize you’re going somewhere, and you’re so lucky to be going somewhere: you and your golden shimmering passport, VIP human, born in the right place at the perfect time, crossing borders laughing smiling posing for pictures: this fear is fruitless, modern-day cruelness. No one chooses the hospital they were born in, what coordinates they breathe their first breath in, and if those coordinates happen to lend you a passport that spells freedom. Police who smile for you.

Everyone you love is below. Everyone you love is somewhere else. Everyone you love is stuck behind borders they didn’t choose to be inside of, miles away. What are they up to? What are they doing? How are they feeling? What is this new normal — everyone in wildly different coordinates?

Why all these inventions? You keep wishing your world smaller: you want to pick your fruits from your garden and harvest love so careful so pure so real. What is real? Who are you here, in the sky, this place your ancestors never dreamed of reaching? If you reached your hand out, would you touch the sun?

When you slip the window open the light blinds you, and you realize you’d melt. Or is it you’d freeze? Or is it you’d choke on your own breath, speeding towards the green you love so much? Time moves past you, hurtles off behind you. You are forgetting the turn of your lovers cheeks. You are losing your mind, spilling dopamine.

Microwave. Your leftovers lose the scent of your mothers’ hands after twirling in fake light. You’re always trying to touch reality, but it deceives you. And then you’re landing. Palm against the little TV rectangle, wheels against exploding against concrete. But you’re on the ground again. Hugging your brother. Smiling. It’s already a distant memory, and you’re looking up at the sky thinking, What luck. What life. If only the world was just a little room. If only I could lock everything and everyone I love in it, and just kiss them.

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