Ladies and gentleman!
Welcome aboard Life Air flight 493.
We are sorry for the delay - of 9 months - in our departure,
but believe me,
it's better in here
than in the outside.

Ladies and gentleman!
There is no safety instruction card in the pocket of the seat in front of you.
There are no guidelines, no rules, no help.
Life is chaos and it is cosmos;
Not black and white, but a blurry grayscale
No x and y axis values you can plot and predict
Just a weird steering wheel
and a lot of dubious buttons.
(it’s not as easy as it seems in action movies!)
For life does not come with a manual.

Ladies and gentleman!
In case of emergency, oxygen masks will drop down in front of you.
If you are traveling with someone, please attend yourself first.
Sometimes, you'll find people who you think are
more worth saving than you are
but breathe.
let the air fill your lungs, overflow.
until it reaches them.
You can't help others when you're drowning.
You can't lean on others when they're also on the water.
You can't love others when you don't love yourself.
Because when you take your last breath
you'll remember
you never got your own life jacket.

Ladies and gentleman!
Keep the shades on your windows lifted at all times.
Even though you are scared of what's outside,
pull up your shades.
Look at the funny-shaped clouds
and the passing cities below you,
Take close attention to all the tiny cars and tiny people
and the dollhouse sized problems.
because we will not be turning back.
Open your windows.
You will see tragedy and hurt and war.
Broken hearts that may or may not belong to you,
broken souls that you can not always cradle in your arms.
Oceans of blood, bright scarlet
contrasting against the otherwise beautiful seashores.

Ladies and gentlemen:
We will be taking off shortly. Please make sure that your seat belt is securely fastened. Thank you.

i'm from a small, yellow bedroom
yellow flowers, yellow layette
and yellow jaundiced skin  
i'm from the taste of the tea mother makes me when i'm sick
and from the sound of her singing
about how she looked and looked for the light
like the roots and the leaves floating in the boiling water
her voice a soothing sound
like bubbles in simmering tea

i'm from words written on a page-
the feeling of an old book and the smell of a new one
and i'm from hiding beneath the covers
falling in love with black letters printed on white paper
i'm from lots of illustrations and then none at all
when my mind became colorful enough to fill all the pages
i'm from "the game is afoot"
and "after all this time?"

i'm from all over the world
pieces of my heart, a jigsaw puzzle
like my family scattered all over the globe
i'm from canada, from the US, from france from lebanon from italy
i'm from a country nobody wants
but a country that desperately wants us back

i'm from messy hair, oversized sweaters
half-finished sketchbooks filled with promises
and ******* poetry lines
i'm from the echo of my own voice
against the splatter of the shower
i'm from reading in the flashes of street lamp lights
i'm from pursuing science and desiring art
drawing on the airplane's foggy windows
and wondering how it flies
with a clear head and with clouded eyes.