For you.

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Falling, Falling.

You told me you didn't know why I'd give up everything for a future that had no guarantee. I didn't either, really, only what I wanted to be. Only that I was reeling from all the times we laughed till we couldn't breathe while hoping for something else that I couldn't see. Perhaps it was the never-ceasing desire of being seen, or that after years and years of hard work, I owed myself a plan to flee.

And here I am, pushing my luggage through the suffocating terminal, arms no longer entwined with yours, your hands no longer reaching for my heavy luggage, wondering how I could go on when I've left behind a piece of me. Am I not worth it—is what we have not enough for you to stay for me? Is it all worth it—to start over, to let go, to be confined again in the land of the free?

When I was in the sky, seated in the cabin, I looked out to the sea of clouds. For a second, I thought I was endless.

It's funny, isn't it, how I wouldn't have been able to breathe if I left the bordered cabin and leapt into the borderless sky. They told me the job was not for the outsider, that no one would understand my cry in a different language, that I could be stripped of my right to stay overnight without really knowing why. And in those moments, I thought of what you said to me—you want to fly high.

I do, and I am now, sealed in a ventilated space and unable to control where the plane will bring me. Not with you by my side, holding my hands, telling me that it's just turbulence—it'll be over eventually. And many nights, I go to bed wondering if I've made the wrong choice, because when I scream your name in my room, the echo of what I once had crawls back to me mercilessly, more deafeningly now that the room is empty.

The one time I went skydiving—there was a moment of free fall before the parachute unfurled and the wind filled my mouth to steal every language from me, before I had to face the inevitable gravity. I didn't have to translate my cry for anyone to see. There was no border in the sky, no country in the air, no foreignness fastened to me. It was that moment when I was truly free. A fleeting moment—but how could I ever let go of the feeling of falling through an iridescent patch of clouds, my mind no longer filled with the debris of who I was expected to be?

You told me you didn't know why I'd give up everything for a future that had no guarantee. I didn't either, really, only what I wanted to be. I wanted to jump out of the plane, not knowing if I could breathe, not wanting gravity to hit me, only that moment of ecstasy.

To free fall.

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