Turbulence

Samantha Kennedy

swimming through the skies

Raspy, heavy rapids swerve our ship
East and west,
North and south.
We’re strangers,
inches away from each other,
Praying for the silence of cranky children and pilot announcements.

Turbulence is like brain waves,

Angry and rushed at the worst moments.
Thoughts of falling and losing control which can only be frightening and irrational,
push through the barriers of each strangers conscience,
concern in creased eyebrows and clenched fists expand into paranoia like the stretching of a
bow before the kill.
panicked whispers and motion sickness were dreaded nonsense I swore to leave on the ground
but they followed me
Into the skies.

The thrill of butterflies in my stomach still gets the best of me and even if i could battle the
rough skies without so much as a skipped heartbeat, i’m sure someone would kindly remind me
that we are thirty thousand feet in the air and our only hope is blindly trusting the pilot,
A man not too sure of himself.
Oh, to be in an unforgiving cycle of uncertainty
is a terrible thing. Your hope dries out and the tears rain down your face,
Desperately trying to recover your growth.
While flying across people with dreams,
I dream of hope and smooth skies
this terrain is too much for my fragile body to grasp.