It's a feeling like standing on the fulcrum point. A see-saw parallel with both ends in the air. I don't want to fall in place on one side, but it's going to happen. It always does. Can't be avoided. Oh well. My legs are still strong. I can stand up here a bit longer, but it's getting more and more difficult. It's a balancing act, a tight rope walk with reality on either side. I tell myself to breathe because I realize I'm holding my breath waiting for something to happen. So they're forced, deep breaths. The kind that you suck in until your lungs are full before letting it all go.
And that's when I get the tickle in the back of my mind that I'm stuck here in the middle. And the ground below looks inviting, so I close my eyes and stand with my feet close together. To no avail though. I'm trapped in a balance, there's not even a teeter. When I open my eyes again and look out the window, the plane's descending on New York. That slow, airline descent, and it's just started. We're below the high feather-wisp clouds now, but the low-level ones are still far below. They're not puffy white anymore, but pewter grey. The sun's just set over that west horizon and that red rose glow's slowly waning in that wide space between the two cloud layers. It's eerie. Like some marshmallow martian landscape with dark cloud mountain ranges pushing up in the distance, silhouetted by the running sun before it's all gone through the low clouds. It's night in New York, and our colonies of orange light come into view. Scattered at first, then gradually thickening and rising up closer. It's easy to get lost in the window seat. I always do, and next thing I know the landing gear rumbles out and we're touching down at JFK. And grabbing bags, and shuffling down the aisle. Long strides on the catwalk to stretch the legs that yearn to move after sitting for so long. The hunger pangs are nauseating. Maybe it's just the new pressure in my ears. Maybe it was that god-awful penguin movie showing on the plane. Maybe it was the hangover from last night. Either way, JFK is a two hour insomnia. My eyelids want to close, but how's sleep supposed to come when my body feels this awful. The gears in my head are grinding much too loud. It's all I'm coherent enough to do to buy some $7.00 vacuum sealed club sandwich and a $5.00 bag of gummy worms and an apple juice. Fuck airports.
