STARLESS EYES

Unheard Goodbye

I dreamed of an airplane last night that crashed into microscopic homes. The debris kicked up by the tragedy were fragments of tiny people who lived in tiny homes that had slept under mini beds and puffed small clouds of air. Pieces of crushed shells - no skulls - and rubble fell around as people ran to the airplane. On the news I watched as feet struck ground - struck unseen unknown homes - uprooted families and left limbs floating in dust.

I dreamed tiny screams and tiny tears. I dreamed off a mother seeing a giant bird drop from the sky. It screeched and melted acrid metal that tasted of cut bodies. I dreamed you were on that airplane and I couldn't care about the other people crying for their lost babies. I did not feel for them when I kicked at small towns and decimated cities or when I crushed bone into powder.

I dreamed of that airplane for eleven nights. Each night it fell from the sky. Each night I heard the cries of people too insignificant for me to grieve for.

Love is so dangerous, I've learned. I would have sacrificed every tiny suburbia if it meant you never got on the plane. I would keep you for myself no matter the wreckage. And that would have made me the monster. Airplanes are metal hollowed out to fly, they are unnatural creations,  but knowing when to let go is natural. It is no creation. It is human.

On the twelfth night I dreamed I was in a microscopic house looking at the metal bird that was falling from the sky.                              All you had wanted was to say goodbye.