how to fly

grow a pair of wings. wait. let’s start that again.

kira tells me over breakfast that she’s trying

to lucid dream. untoasted bagel flat open-faced

on the plate, managed to seize the last regular

cream cheese she usually misses arriving

after the morning rush. for many reasons,

but mostly curiosity, kira is attempting flight.

i am somewhat skeptical. the last time i realized

i was dreaming, my motion was limited and choppy,

sleep shedding a feather for every attempt,

magnetically plucked by consciousness.

a dreamer’s nightmare. it didn’t feel like flying

so much as trying to hold on. wait. let’s start that again.

molly sits behind the wheel of her red jeep

and tells me about black holes. that year

i spent riding passenger, we took potholes

like the last obstacles launching us into atmospheric

disappearance, pinky-promising endlessly

to the plastic idol of spring-loaded jesus bobbing

on her dashboard. molly’s been getting

really into simulation theory and between breaths

of mint-flavored rush, steam spent to hotbox,

leaving stars on the windows, molly

never shuts up about it. i don’t know what will happen

to me when i die, but i am viscerally afraid

of pixelation. even more i am afraid

of nothing. i think i spent that year inhaling

second-hand god complex, convinced we cohabitated

the sky. what a rude awakening, every time

we hit the road. wait. let’s start that again.

shumita’s dad takes us to an aquarium

where we can peer over the side of the walkway

and watch penguins wobbling beneath us. my delicate

sensibilities debilitated, i can’t make it up past

the second floor. i possess a deathly fear of heights.

always have. wait. let’s start that again.

i’ve heard flying is a little overrated. wait.

Cathleen Weng has called many states home: Massachusetts, South Dakota, New Jersey, Alabama, Tennessee, New York, and now Connecticut. She likes her poetry apocalyptic and her prose optimistic. Almost everything she writes is a love letter to her friends, in one way or another. Cathleen has previously been published in Paranoid Tree Press, Glass Mountain, and the Nassau Literary Review.