This is How Big

DEN → SFO

I just keep going west,

A pursuit towards

            something

            maybe

But away from falling asleep

With her soft chest

On either side of the hard bumps of my spine.

My spine,

A mountain range.

I look down and see her town;

She’s in there somewhere,

And for how big she seems to me

When she touches my sides,

I think I should be able to see her.

She’d speak to me, peer in the plane window,

Her watermelon lips would threaten

To swallow me.

She’d follow our plane,

Me,

Into the mountains.

Marshmallow clouds would part for her,

She’d eat them like cotton candy.

Her left hand would hover beneath

The plane’s belly.

She would steady it.

She would look into my eyes,

And I would wonder if I’m staring at the sky.

She doesn’t have to run to keep up.

She would glide with me.

I could dive into the pools of her freckles.

In San Francisco I would land.

She would walk with me across the

Golden Gate Bridge.

It would rain.

She would wear the rainbow as a headband.

About the Author

Helen Armstrong is a junior Print Communications major. When she grows up she wants to be either Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or a writer, whichever comes first. She's currently brainstorming a gay book about the afterlife, and her dream is to write fiction that is a) entertaining, b) refreshing, and c) not heteronormative. She's editor-in-chief at locomag.com and tweets a mix of weird stuff and political rants @helenkarmstrong.