36,000 Feet

At 36,000 feet above the earth I feel no clarity

I amuse myself by watching the white foam dance in the Atlantic below,

By admiring the mysterious crevices of Greenland,

By gazing at the wisps of clouds as they play

This used to be my safe haven,

Away from the obscurities of my life

Not today.

Today you consume my mind

I reflect on my previous four days

I tried to lose you,

But instead, seemed to find you

On every age-old street corner,

In every dark pub,

And with every step I took on the sad river

Bouts of turbulence break me out of my reverie and into the reality that faces me at the end of this

journey

What has happened to my Trans-Atlantic escape?

I am plagued by thoughts of losing you

And how is this even possible, when I never really even had you at all?

I tune into this tiny city in the clouds hoping to find distraction

Weary travelers roam the aisles,

A mother quiets her baby with a foreign lullaby,

And I try to find peace in the humming of the turbines

For the first time in 11 crossings, I look forward to the descent

And to the return of my so-called sanity