elevating

by Chuck Sebian-Lander

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the troposphere feels like the ground,
except your parents are yelling and the dog is barking
both more than usual

​

okay, you think, this is neat, though;
you’ve never seen anyone else float before
or wiggle their toes above their head
as they rise

​

you move to text your boyfriend about it, until you realize
you've left your phone on earth. oh well

​

your neighbor, standing next to your parents
asks "where does she think she's going"

​

he's always been a bit slow, and creepy.
even now he's just staring at you. hasn't he ever seen
an upside-down girl before

​

whatever - soon you'll reach the clouds.
you loved clouds, back when you memorized their names
from a poster on the wall of second grade homeroom.

​

cumulonimbus. nimbostratus. great names for indie bands,
all of them

​

a chattering flock of robins cascades along your ribs
and you spread your arms and wonder
if, when you inhale, the clouds will snake into your nostrils
a hit off the celestial vape

​

and a fun visual for a snapchat post.
or, at least, it could have been. oh well

​

or maybe the wisps will encircle your ears instead,
you think, as pressure intensifies at your temples
and silence layers upon itself, a rainbow-cake void,
deader as the planet gets smaller

​

but when you do hit a cloud, it’s a half-formed cirrus
cleared in a blink of crummy fog. life is a sequence
of disappointments, you think, sagely

​

fifty kilometers high and an hour later, in the mesosphere,
the air cracks and chills to curdle your veins
and thicken your blood;

​

if you could tweet right now, you'd tell everyone
never to try this: "floating is boring" would be the caption,
below an image of the blank black

​

an irritable sigh escapes you and slashes at your lungs
like a rock skipped over shallow water; instead of breathing
you busy yourself counting meteorites that tumble past,
downward as they catch silent flame

​

and disintegrate. oh well

​

oceans and mountains lie flat before you
like elementary-school cardboard dioramas. 
so small yet so great, how wondrous

​

you just want a blanket

​

at the mesopause it is lonely, one hundred kilometers above
your confused parents and their half-blind corgi
lonely as everywhere else in stupid space, you think;
you've learned so much so quickly

​

your fingers are numb and bloated
you couldn’t text even if you had your phone

​

your intestines have unraveled,
flapping like the limbs
of advertising balloon dancers
atop car dealerships

​

earth is a watercolor smear; you want some tylenol
and a nap.
the thin air’s making you delirious,
but not enough to cause trippy hallucinations:

​

no angels or ghosts,
no hunky astronauts,
nothing

​

this, you say through lips inflated to elephant trunks, is lame

​

when you hit one-hundred-twenty kilometers,
barely a third through the thermosphere
(jesus, who cares which sphere anyway),
the low pressure stretches and pops you like a long blister

​

and the slimy remainder of you hurtles back to earth
as a clump of heavenly bird droppings
thank god