a trick, too small to fly. Would our suitcases even fit? Next, I remember night not wanting to fall like stars, not wanting to fall anymore. My tiny hands won’t wrap around the metal ends of the armrests I grip. I feel the cold metal still, the belt pulled tight across girl-sized hips, a true terror, turning me to statue as my brother whoops from the cockpit chair: “Again, do it again,” he pleads to the laughing pilot who tells him he’s not doing anything, it’s the air. I recall the startling deep deeply startling drops, and realize we, this family of three, always spent more time moving up and down than forward.
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