Earthbound Misfit

Green Aurora Over Ireland _{(Credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center)}

What a long, long time to be gone, and such a short time to be there.
I miss you most in that awkward shade of blue in between respectable colors.
I was a monster to them because I loved you when our love was the work of hell.
I was a monster beyond that because I refused the life of dutiful housewife.

I don’t miss you the nights I am alone, lost in memories while hidden away in my bed.
Nor the days I have nothing to do, recalling great operas or dining with kings.
Not even when my latest blind date falls apart, leaving me yearning for something real
And I remember the nights we spent in the meadow intertwined in passion.

No. It is when I am an exhausted traveler, 
returning from a land of palm trees and orange groves.
I didn’t miss you when I was on the ground.
Only when I slipped the bonds of gravity did the longing come back.

Rivers of orange and white play out beneath me.
The same veins I recall pulsing beneath your skin.
But that was two centuries ago. 
You’re dust and echoes now.

I loved after you.
He was a reclamation project.
Like you. Like me.
But he and I took different paths.

The moon is partially shrouded in shadow,
Its color wavering between gold and alabaster. 
This supposed city below is more a sea of orange and white lights.
They shimmer like a luminescent pool from another planet.

I wish, the way a flight at night allows us to escape our routine
And brush ever so slightly the celestial angels in this cosmic dance,
That I could escape the labyrinth of thoughts that plague my mind,
And get past the half truths I tell myself to make it through the day.

We’re northward bound once more, reaching our cruising altitude.
Much like my vessel, I too will return to the land of cold.
I’m coming back to reality, back to the life I am supposed to lead.
It’s a cruel thing not to be in control of your own flight path.

Gravity takes hold of us all.
Those angels all soar on feathery wings
But I am just an earthbound misfit,
Painfully aware of what awaits once I hit the ground.