The Weather Remembers

The sky was clouded grayscale, and
the wind whipped my hair across my face.

The perfect weather for ripped jeans
and an oversized sweatshirt with thin
blue stripes, or the one that was black all over
and had holes in the sleeves for my thumbs.

I was a bumblebee, moving from house
to house collecting candy.

Sophia wanted to play a game,
so we watched daisy petals rush
to the ground:
he loves me,
he loves me not.

We found a broken music stand
on the side of the road before we
watched the Cowardly Lion
run around the stage.

In untied shoes, a size too big,
we scraped along the sidewalk.

I laid in the dirt of her backyard
and held my breath
while they covered me in
golden leaves.

Covering ourselves in Christmas lights,
instruments in hand,
we marched onto
the field and did the Time Warp.

It was the first game of the season,
and my jersey wasn’t stained yet.

Then the sky lightened a little,
the wind died down,
and I forgot.

 

Skyhawk

I pulled the buckle tight, until it felt
like my insides would squeeze
out of my stomach if I breathed.
My feet tried to hold me to the ground
on ballerina toes until finally, we lifted
slowly–up, up, up, gaining speed like a
car in chase; behind us,
the fear of dropping back to Earth.
Back and forth like a handsaw,
higher every time, until on one side
I could reach out and grab the clouds
like cotton, and the other side allowed the sky
to push me like a child on a swing.
The buckle was shed like a sweater
after a long day at work, and the seat
eased into thin air beneath me,
and I flew freely–a fairy
with my hair snapping in the wind,
my arms out wide.
I closed my eyes,
only opening them when we stopped
up top; not because I was scared,
but because the darkness let me see
clearly and feel the motion in my bones.
Then slowly, slowly, we came back down
and the harness released me, for real this time,
the unrestricted ground feeling like prison.