The first time you flew you told the birds how unfair it is that the air is so much thinner up here, that below they have to breathe the crushing weight of the stratosphere just because they’re accustomed to it, and your gasping for breath doesn’t make any sound yet every day you choose life,
man and wife man and wife
placed in a gunfight with a pocket knife and a guidebook of expectations. You don’t remember filling an application for this, for now-flightless wings or for being this daughter
I will love you come hell or high water
but the first time you landed you didn’t write a thing, you just drank tea out of a paper cup, no mug in the sink, no need for anyone to look up when she came home. The first time you used the key in this new house’s door it fit so perfectly that you didn’t feel at home anymore. The *** boiled even though you watched, and you drank out of a paper cup and no one looked up, it was biodegradable and then it was gone.
The first time you flew. The first time you really saw you. The first time you heard that song called poison oak, the first time you said what you meant to say, the last time you spoke.