One

The flight attendants are screaming

and there's no one in the cockpit.

A man chants the in flight menu loudly like a prayer,

another runs towards the exit.

Mommy, is everything ok?

A young girl asks, her mother

filling out the landing form in silence.

The right engine catches fire, then the left.

Lines and shapes turn into buildings, roads, cars.

The local time is 5PM and the weather is fair.

The girl shakes her mother but she won’t respond.

An old woman has collapsed in the aisle.

A few are in the brace position.

The seatbelt sign has come on.

Many languages are being spoken,

but all incomprehensibly.

The only thing heard is fear.

The only thing known is death.

I hold my breath, and close my eyes,

reminding myself that the chances

of dying in an aircraft

are a million to one.

A million to one,

A million to-

Nothing better to do

Poison in my coffee. I knew I should’ve left a tip. Always in a rush. I’ll be late to my own funeral.

Living in a blind society. Waiting for the curtain to fall. Make my coffee, drink my bed. Traffic, am I right?

They gave me time to kill. So now I’m killing time. What I don’t understand scares me. Thank God I brought a dictionary.

They’re making that noise again. I suppose someone made a joke. Working to earn paper. Pushing paper for work.

People act so calmly. All the while clinging hard. Wealth, age, the things you love. Statistics on a trading card.

Beginning to forget my name. The name of my only friend. Must meet myself sometime soon. Hope I’m not stood up again.

Dead rats don’t win races. Cogs will never get ahead. They stay in place and turn and turn. A ferris wheel filled with the dead.

Slanted Sunday rain. I tilt my head so I can see you. You’re smiling like a crazy person. Because you know I’m right.

The reaper’s hollow whistles, Fill the empty, lifeless street. I dance along, both eyes closed, With nothing better to do.

Headlie News

Boy arrested - he broke into a library at night

looking for the answer to everything.

Pleaded confusion.

Asked why the judge wasn't a boy,

and the boy not a judge.

'What is going on? Where are we?

Why is no one talking about this?'

His parents claimed he had learning difficulties, a lie.

Though he was let off with a warning

and a trip to the local child counsellor.

When even she couldn't answer his questions

he thought it was a secret, before he realised.

The show of patience, the concerned smiles of these adults

were not just because he was a child.

They were thin veils shielding them from the cosmic abyss.

A gap in thought keeping their minds from self destruction.

An ignorance allowing them all to function.

They didn't know either.

It was all an act.