we are up in the air. i can feel your elbow brushing against mine. your eyes are closed but your left hand stays safely on my right knee. 

you feel far away sometimes, but not right now. your lips are parted just so, and i know this means you’re heading towards sleep, towards dreams.

it’s you and me up here. 

i look out the window. we’re surrounded by clouds and all i can see is grey. just below us is Everything: the air, treetops, concrete, commuters, taxis and trains, babies in strollers, pollens, teenagers writing songs.

below us, people are sitting in traffic, pushing down their cuticles, talking on the phone. i press my left palm to the window and watch as the stencil of my skin takes form and slowly evaporates.

i shift my weight. we’ve come through the clouds and the earth below us is carpeted with geometric swatches of green and brown. there is still snow on the ground, even though we’re tumbling headfirst into summer. 

i recognize this nowhere place, this location that lies between here and there. it’s where we found each other, i think. our paths crossed: you, on your way to somewhere, and me, heading dutifully somewhere else. we met unceremoniously in the middle, in the pregnant pause between elsewhere and home. 

home, 

which is up in the air in this nowhere place, because

home

is wherever you are.