Without further ado, I give you "Age"
Age
The thrust of those thundering engines
forcing me back into my seat, a pressure that I can never
quite remember yet never forget, it brings freedom of the
sky like a bird in the deep blue, near pitch black out left window
spotted with stars and blazing setting sun to the right. I am nine.
Turbulence always the name of the game, never have I been
quite sure where it comes from. I look into the clouds
that surround me cocoon-like and see no difference
as the delicate monstrosity is buffeted through the sky. The gods
are angry and wish to scare someone who has
sinned, and for this we all suffer. I am (lucky) thirteen.
Flight has always petrified. I imagine the first creature, ancient
dinosaur or unevolved, hairy bird, that dared jump from a tree.
Or did it fall quite by accident and flail about with stubby wings
and find that those fleshy arms could keep him from that painful
death that awaited him at the jungle floor? I am only an idea.
Today, flight scares many still. Terror is in the minds of all as
they board their flight, blowing kisses back to wife, daughter,
mistress. But what is terror? I find the true terror that I fear
as I board my plane that is to take me to some far off paradise
that few have even imagined, the thing I fear more than any other
is that my vacuum sealed bag’o’nuts won’t add up to my age. I am twenty.