You are not really sure when you stopped noticing
the sound of the wind outside, the engine's roar from beneath you.
But it must have been sometime between the moment when the seatbelt sign went on
and the point when it went off again.

It's been a couple minutes since the electronic devices were taken out
and there are earphones, still half tangled, cascading from ears,
to waist, and into pockets.
You've pushed your seat as far back as it can go,
and you are no longer trying to squeeze your elbows into your hips,
worried they'll bump against the arms of the lady beside you.
She asked you before take off to close the window a bit
and she watched as you slid the blind,
turning the glass that was before a full moon into a waxing crescent.

Outside, the clouds seem to push against each other,
and the earth beneath has now lost it's form.
Inside, it is no longer the same planet.


The galaxies are painted
on the patterns of the carpet and the fabric that covers the seats in front of you.
There are planets orbiting around you,
full constellations pushing against the compartments of the food cart
finding it's way between the rows of people.
Your passport is no longer gripped between your fingers
but has become victim of the gravity that chose to escape through the air vents
and, like a lone astronaut, is now floating above the head of the middle-aged man
with the receding hairline,
two rows ahead.

A teenager sits behind you,
and his music is loud enough that you can hear the drumbeat,

the sound two asteroids make upon collision.