flight

my walls are covered in maps, in mortality, “101 places to see before you die, die, die”, in boldly spelled destinations and promises I want out, I want away; I want to plummet from the nest to the earth in one fell hope for a natural swoop the brush of a calligraphy pen and a flash of wings don’t grant it or I’ll scratch at the screen and whine that I want back I wasn’t ready, I want to curl back up in a pile of dinosaur blankets and dress in my mama’s too-big clothes and invite my bears to tea parties. I want to feel bigger than my toy cars and planes instead of being one tiny soul shuttled about in a whirlwind of turbulent air currents I miss being small and nimble and young enough, frail enough, frightened enough to crawl into my mother’s lap and not be chastised for sobbing at my nightmares, to have my hair stroked as she bundled me against her steady chest and sang me to sleep in the safest world I could ever know but one day I woke up and all at once my bones splintered and grew, my skin stretched and flashed through long gone seasons of faded tans, my joints screamed as more weight fell to their precarious balance and though they stumbled, somehow they caught on and continued to stand. but my child’s mind- still concerned with spotting bright pennies gleaming in the gutter and peeping beneath a grimy grate to wonder at the promise of dolphins swimming under the sheen of oil and moss- my mind cannot fathom this foreign new frame that is at once too wide and too tall and not big enough to dampen the noise and anger and passion and confusion reverberating against my skull. my mind settles only at midnight, as I’m padding down a quiet staircase as I’m mildly wondering at my own reality if I’m tangible, touchable or numb weightless floating a hallway ghost drifting between bright warm bodies, heads dripping in wild color and hearts thrumming to a hummingbird’s rhythm, a ghost pale and quiet and too long forgotten to curl up by a sparking fire that whispers bedtime stories of rest and peace and sanctity bedtime fairytales promising a fate that my hands might barely reach, if this body can shake itself awake and propel the sparks to my fingertips’ nerve endings I will unfold my story precariously, like the origami birds my sister would idly crease and uncrease and stow away in safe little pockets discovered only by those curious enough to search