Remember the airplane? The soft, too soft cushioned seats, the itchy blankets, the windows that looked like droopy, stretched out eyes. The stewardess asked you what you wanted to drink and you asked for coffee. It woke you up a little from this dream world, this imaginative flight on air. You struggled to believe that humans could fly. But they could, because anything was possible.


Remember the man next to you? How he snored, obliviously unaware of the world at hand. No one mattered but himself. And the women who left the beat up issue of Cosmopolitan in the seat pocket. You were reading it when they handed you the peanuts wrapped in plastic. The peanuts tasted dry and processed, like dreams reused and recycled till bland with dry salt. The salt, it tasted like day old tears.


Remember the pillow? How it held your tears with all its scratchiness, with all its white ugly hospital colors, it held your emotions. It was like a sponge, soaking up feelings long forgotten of old, ancient places. You had no idea where you were going. All you knew was the monotonic voice of the flight attendant talking about the temperature and some ambiguous final destination.


Remember the teenager next to you? The one with the too-loud heavy metal music. It disturbed your quiet introspection, like raindrops on a calm lake of time. You thought about time, and how you were going back in it, flying from west to east, from edge to edge, from coast to coast. You wished going from one extreme to another was as simple as boarding a plane. In your heart, you knew no matter what anyone said, it was more complicated.


Remember the smile? The fake, tender smile of the stewardess as she handed you your coffee, the same smile she delivered to countless others. You turned away from too white teeth and artificial lip colors. It was snowing below the clouds. You counted the snowflakes even though you couldn’t see them with your eyes. There were thousands of them. You willed them to melt in your outstretched hands.


Remember me? I’m the one you left behind as you boarded the plane. I watched you, duffel bag in hand, hair askew and messed, I watched you turn your back on me and walk away. I walked outside and watched the snow pile up, all those wishes, all those dreams, stacked and frozen in a mass expanse for children to turn into angels. I laid down in it and made an angel. I watched the streaks of white exhaust from planes till they dissipated in the pale gray sky. I watched you till you flew away. The streaks you left took years to fade. They started black and turned gray and by the time they were white I was old and gray and there were wrinkles in my skin and I couldn’t remember anyone’s name, forget your destination or what you were wearing that day. But in the moment I could remember. And I asked you to remember, at least a little, what it was like the day you took off and left behind your dreams, broken like old swans with their necks bent out of shape, lying in neglected piles on coastal shores.