Space Travel

They said each shuttle would contain six
to eight persons. But hold on, we’re not astronauts.
Just space travelers seeking weightlessness.
Every man you can imagine on this ship is carrying
something too heavy to withstand. & for
the majority, it is grief heaped upon grief
heaped upon grief. We had bags of food & water.
Cameras to catch a fleeting glimpse of our smiles.
Spacesuits & diaries. & yes, a bag of memories
to forget. When the flight attendant asked us
to move toward the bag and empty those memories
we do not ever want to have again, I shoved
my hand into my pocket & fumbled for the note
she left on the table the day she eloped with
sickle cell anemia. That one guy that had always
been there breaking her from skin to blood
to bone marrow. & she, the loyal dog in the toxic
relationship, subjected herself to the excruciating
pain & suffering. If she were here, we would
have traveled together in the summer shuttle to see
the sun. Our bodies, empty & under zero gravity
floating in the midair like weaverbirds & canaries.
The power of this weightlessness is how it makes
you unbreakable, unfazed even when you’re stand-
ing in the zenith, face to face with the sun—right
there refusing to burn because you want to be cooked
& not charred—tender & not ash. “Excuse me sir,
do you have any memory you would like to dispose
of?” “Oh, yes, I do. I do.” So I looked in the bag
& tossed the note away, then walked to my seat,
tightened my seat belt & wondered if all this while
you were the silence that kept recurring at the
end of my songs or the sweet melody within,
like the consonant of an alliteration.