There is no room here. From every side I am pressed together tightly like the numerous pages of a heavy book. I am too grand for this plane; my knees merge firmly into the seat in front of me and no position is comfortable for more than a second. I shift again and again throwing up a white flag.
But none of that matters; out the window, 30,000 feet below me the sun is sinking west beneath the pleats and rugged folds of a land I’ve never seen. Which mountains are these? Which state? Which world? I may never know. I’ve traveled back in time, jetting from the setting sun and pushing back fiercly at the seam of darkness. At such a great height, I am here and there at the same time. I am a thousand different souls united, hurling through space, picking up pieces of my ancient being one by one.
Here, there is plenty of room. Here my soul can unfurl and stretch out its limbs grasping anything foreign and yet familiar. Like a crowded seedling erupting from its soil prison into the new atmosphere above. It straightens its spine, growing taller and confident with each second. My soul expands in the twilight and inhales. All of this before the fiery star slips beneath the mountains and I am again on the ground.
The Way U Carry It 