AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER

Steel bound,
fuel soaked
explosive and dangerous,
this is not what I was promised
in first dreams.
These skies are not friendly.
They are policed.

Straps and restraints
reframe the experience.
This is not flying.
This is something else again
a pale facsimile of the real thing
that thing from first dreams
with the air blasting skin
and gravity lightly yielding
to the will of the flyer.

It is not flight in your metal coffin
while servants run about the place
offering all the comforts of home
like salty nuts in a tiny sack.
It is not true unless naked.
it is not right with constraints.
It is not flight without freedom.