i am on an airplane in initial descent

and you are the sunshine streaming, flooding,

bursting through my reluctant windows.

it is two thirty seven pm local time

but i left my circadian clock back home

and my mind is on the verge of crashing.

weary and disoriented after a sleepless night,

cramped and bleary from enduring twelve hours

of coach-class hell, i pull the blinds down

and beg for an uneventful end.

and you peek through the cracks and scream of a fresh beginning.

you sing and dance on the fluffy tops

of marshmallow clouds, skip and play

through a strange white landscape

untouched by rain and gloom.

the atmosphere is cold and thin,

but somehow you manage

to make it hospitable

just by being here. and for that,

i love you.

you wrap me in rainbow melodies

sung from vibrant strings,

invite my soul to dive into yours

and harmonize with the pure

electromagnetic light of the cosmos.

with secret hugs and whispered kisses

we write each other’s narratives

and finish them off

with a matching pair of rhymes.

when it’s all over I still have words to give you,

words that I know are only

asymptotic reflections

of what you’re worth. and for that,

i adore you.

we share a fleeting moment of blissful reverie.

and then i remember where i am.

right now i am circling thirty thousand feet

above my destination, but any moment

i could be brought back down to earth.

my estimated time of arrival is in twenty-three minutes

and the weather on the ground

is dismal with severe thunderstorms.

you and i are running out of time.

the reality of my predicament comes  blasting at me

like a microcosm of turbulence, and i spin laterally

through three hundred and sixty degrees

and fall four hundred feet.

my eardrums pop

and suddenly i can’t breathe

and the pilot’s shaky voice is coming over the intercom

and the overhead panels are ejecting yellow oxygen masks

but i don’t want oxygen,

i want you.

A split second’s impulse tells me what to do.

i bound out of my seat

and race past stunned passengers

into the exit row and wrestle the heavy door open.

pandemonium erupts

within the rapidly depressurizing cabin

and hysterical air marshals

are waving guns around

as i take one last breath

and

jump.