Flight

After reading the book of constellations

And studying the arial photographs you sent me,

I mark my coordinates,

Mapping out the crazy zig zag pattern of connect the dots where I will be,

I am able to prepare for my ascent into the night sky,

I shed my clothes,

Layer upon layer,

Until nothing is left,

I shed my inhibitions,

My fears,

Until nothing is left but

Skin,

And I start to peel that too,

My outer layer of skin

Soft tissues,

Hard muscles flexing under your hands

that you find so appealing,

I imagine myself without body

Without this crippling, bag of bones and skin

Free from this thing we call gravity

Carl Sagen would have been proud,

And I climb, swirl dervishly towards the first constellation to the right of Mars,

I get side tracked by a shooting star,

Did you not say those were lucky?

I am lucky in the knowledge that flight comes natural to me

As breathing

Atoms and molecules breath through me,

There is no solid flesh to siphon those dust particles we find so annoying,

And I am taken back by how easily I can get lost in dark pools of your liquid eyes,

They are muddied and swirl of nebulas yet to be discovered,

Those lost eyes that resemble galaxies yet to be named,

Eyes so dark and lost that I imagine an intergalactic space war,

I tell you,

I have been there and back again,

Chasing and pursued by my own demons,

Those harbingers of doom

Space travel is my specialty,

And I imagine you staring up at the sky wondering where I have gone,

I am everywhere,

I am the caught between heaven and earth

Bound to neither realm

Yet I find myself lingering in your thoughts

I am something that you can not define

I am that shining star,

Sparkling diamonds blink Morse code

Love messages relayed in space time,

I am your bat spiraling into the night,

I am your shooting star delivering your wish,

So in the end, this really isn’t a poem about flight or space travel but the limitless capacity of human nature to fall and rise

To breath and take flight into the unknown

To trust

To trust the mysteries of flight.