By Gayle Bell

The day we both took off
My eyes are shut
Trying Zen breaths
Peeking at the rapidly distant ground

By the time we hit the velvet
Yeah Go!
Your eyes I picture are opened
Laughing at the joke
In Austin surrounded by poetry
Poets, the glory of a dirty stage
10 minutes, 3 poems
3 minutes, 10 seconds
To open mic liftoff
Our roads with pens
And crumpled pages
In the airport lobby I read
How you lived
How long your coma lasted
Gasses filling the form
That housed a brilliant chasm
I reminiscence of how cool
I tried to look
Struggling over your words

I flamed the back of a bottle blond
Who cut in front of me in B line
Only to give me the right of way
At boarding call
With me feeling like an ass
Trudging up the ramp
I am reassured
That you would understand the punch line

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Gayle Bell is a writer inspired by her “family of origin and her rainbow family”. She has published profusely and can be found reading poetry around Dallas, Texas, USA. Her poetry will be featured in the Coal Anthology Dampen to Bend.