37,000 Feet High

and dreaming of runaway land

Twenty minutes to landing in Nashville, I watched the sun melt and slip beneath the clouds. Wisps of white nothingness rose from them like incense smoke or steam off a pot of coffee, snaking and twisting until they dissipated. I was pressed against the glass and my hair covered the eye closest to the window, altering my vision. Leftover light from the sinking sky caught in my hair, turning the black a deep violet. Rainbow streaks split across the glass, sizzling into fragments of glitter. I watched them take shape inside the scratches, opening and closing my eyes against the heat of it. I could have cut my teeth on the air around it all. How high is 37,000 feet? The lack of oxygen seemed to compress my lungs and keep me high. The world was melting away and its colors became asphyxiating. Or maybe it was only leftover dye from the summer of 2024. That summer began in the English countryside, crossed through London and Liverpool, and ended with the two of us loose on the cobblestone streets of half-abandoned cities. He was touring. We were reckless. Home was nowhere, and still we found escape routes. Still, we ran away. There were trains and buses, hotels and motels, nights and mornings I remember only by the way the world sounded outside. Rain against brick. Tires screeching. A fist cracking against a cheek. Glass smashing somewhere below us. My perceived proximity to death depended on how closely I was listening. The air smelled of fig and rebellion, and by the end of it, so much Aperol and fog clouded my judgment that I could barely remember where I had left his guitars. Their strings quivered in the sexual intensity of broken promises through every city and over every hill we crossed. The running never ended in runaway land. At the end of the summer, seven and a half hours brought us back to eleven at night in Tennessee, inside of our usual speakeasy. There we met two more runaways, stranded after their little plane broke down, speaking in fragments of weather and fuel and change and betrayal. Aeronautico. That is a story for another time. Until then I take these memories in as the minutes and miles slip behind me. I know that eventually whatever remains will disappear, but for now I am still unwilling to let them go. When I landed last night the sky was pink and another plane was taking off.