letters from camp 1 in poetry

I am no longer so afraid of flight
not for most of the process
not anymore
not like I was when I first flew
when I saw Spain and Italy as a boy
when I almost ripped the arms off the chairs
in white hot terror
in fear of death by suffocation fire or both

oh flying's still a horrible ordeal
the just-for-show tedious security checks
the em-burdened rush between connections
the chairs so tiny they would cramp leprechaun legs
let alone my own being larger than most normal people
it's all still awful
it's all still casual torture
it's still paying someone eight hundred dollars
to treat you like cattle chugging off to slaughter
that's all still a carnival of Orwellian discomfort
but it's nothing to fear
just to endure
as coin of the realm
for passage between the worlds
as it were

the only time I'm still afraid of flying
is in the landing
I can take off and cruise in the air just fine
I still white knuckle the final descent
I still grind my teeth and brace for impact
I'm still burning in terror
that I can't stick the landing
you can take this as a metaphor
as a metaphor upon the way I live my life
but the first time I flew as an adult
from JFK to LAX
when we landed the tires popped
and we had to be drug on chains to the gate
and it scared the everliving shit out of me
later on one of the flight attendants told me
that it was as bad a thing as can happen in a landing
without someone actually dying
so when we are landing
I am still afraid
for a moment

Los Angeles still looks like a circuit board
from the air at night
eighty million blinking lights
Los Angeles still looks like a Christmas tree
laid upon its side while still plugged in
Los Angeles from the air at night
still looks beautiful and terrifying
and overcrowded and lonely
and vulgar and sublime
those blinking lights don't lie
these are all the things that it is at once

sometimes when I'm flying
I pretend that the plane is all a farce
that we were transported instantaneously
from one city to another
that space folded or
that the distance between the cities is a lie
and that we're just made to sit in that box for six hours
to maintain the illusion that the world is really that big
and to sell us nine dollar shots of vodka
in our moments of weakness

brothers and sisters
I am no longer afraid of flying
but the landing still messes me up like nothing less
greetings from Los Angeles