My First Plane Ride - A poem

Ascent:

plane taxied out on runway
and my heart beat fists against
inside of my chest. you took
my hand, to still it, as it drew
circles on your knee. tried to hide
my panicked tendencies, but of course
you saw through them, because honesty
is best policy and I hard shared
my paranoia with you.

plane drove around slowly,
like a traveler turning around
in a driveway because they'd missed
their stop. you playfully kept
looking at me, seeing how I was doing
kept asking me, how I was doing
and I kept saying I was fine. Mostly
truth, but still my heart kept
drumming in rhythms of distress.

pilot came over intercom said,
he had to get ice off the wings,
we weren't even going off yet,
so many false starts to take off
that my nerves got bored waiting.
you asked me again, if I was okay
and i said, yes, mostly more truth
now, subsiding as splashes of water
hit outside of metal box.

then into position. increase in speed,
throttle forward, raising to invisible
spaces on outside of metal tube,
headlong into,
air, airborne, nose angled upwards
and away, up, up, climbing til
stabilized, and not so bad. you took
my hand and you asked me, if i was okay.
I said, not so bad.

yawn now, you told me, i did, but it was a breath
as though I'd forgotten how to be tired,
so i had to try again, small pop in my left
ear, but right ear didn't cooperate,
once one yawn emitted, another had to come
and you caught in my infectious trademark
of tired beings, yawning back at me.

we stabilized, we centered,
and we flew onward.

Descent:

On approach, dip in the plane,
angling down, roller coaster at its peak
height, open window across aisle revealed
Boston, Mass, far off background character
to the box i resided in and you said
look its Boston, and I looked, and level
plane banked and disoriented itself
and my stomach said weeeee
and my brain scrambled and I pinched fingers
at my temple.

You rubbed hand on my shoulder,
and it calmed me a bit, and you said look
its the ocean, and I looked out window,
same one, same one across aisle,
and I saw the ocean, Atlantic, for first
time and then plane banked again
and i audibly begroaned this disorientation
as it spazzed through my brain matter
feeling i could spill my self into the aisle
and roll around a little and wait
for feeling to pass.

I didn't have to do this. You leaned in
close to my ear, and you sang to me
in whispered little voices, and calmed
me with your voice, with hand on my shoulder
and you sang us down to the earth
literally, you sang me down to earth,
and we landed and we began
and I realized for the 101st time
how much you meant to me
and what power you had inside of you

because you sang from the sky,
caught my wandering balloon strings
and tethered me to you as you space
walked me back to ground.