how it feels to be 22 in an airplane

the Menu:
a small can of orange juice,
pretzels.
chocolate samples please.

All my life I've written about being INCOMPLETE
getting lost in thought wondering about your eye color (they were going to be blue)
fishing
for premature feelings and words that don't exist yet
because no other catch would fill those holes.

Incompleteness tickles. Its a funny state of being and it grows on you like
a fungus,
its victims live in 2+ places at once and
it's
a thief that way, cutting people in half
I've always been cut in half

but there's so much to write about

when it feels like I've always been sitting in a laundromat waiting for you.
the bells will ring as you open the door and your shoes will trace my footprints over the unswept floor and they'll walk to me and you'll sit down and
those holes holding my better half back will
fill up
with
your
smile

Incompleteness won't let me see your face.

Instead this window becomes thousands of trees
we are landing a plane in front of them
they choose to look at us
us
in our laundromat
us
in this landing plane,
on another flight
us
as my feet
us
as my thoughts
are magnetized to the ground.

i am looking

close your eyes.
when you open them, look left,
out the window:

someone has spilled poinsettia leaves and pumpkin peels across the horizon.
I'm sitting next to you, keeping the colors from slipping through my hands

colors tasting of Bahamian sunburned lips and, faintly,
of cranberry juice.

we watch
amazed
as unseen hands pour carrot soup over the horizon
and dunk the world beneath poinsettia skies.

i am looking at air dyed red and orange and coral
i am looking from flight DL1928 to Atlanta
i am looking to be taught why sunsets matter when hearts break and flesh bleeds.

Blood, from a lamb.
spread across
a horizon like it was spread across
door posts in Israel like it flowed
on a roman cross and there shall be no more.

no more blood no more pain no more death

i am looking at a sun as it slips off the edge of the world,
feeling peace, and it fills up my heart
and overflows into the ocean below.