Fantasy on a Plane’s Paper Napkin

I am seated on an airplane. The girl across from me has a knotted bun on top of her head, a temple urging me to pray. There is no reason to have fear. Stress is not on my mind as we lift into the stars.

April is the name I chose for my writing, when this all started. During quarantine, I wrote a poem about Lolita and got famous. I look down at my Starbucks cup, where my new name is scrawled in chicken scratch, as official as any signature on a marriage license. It is Valentine's Day, and the loneliness doesn't drown me out anymore, a grayscale picture taken out of focus. The plane is full of candor and good manners; everyone is happy.

Sylvia Plath once wrote, I am I am I am. I think of how Valentine's Day once wrote me into a stupor of self-hatred and incomplete sentences. Now it rolls out of my mouth like perfect marbles: I am alone. That is the prayer I mumble to myself, the internal poem that becomes a holy trinity of words. I think of language, how we can manipulate words to be perfectly rounded in supple mouths that are built to swallow.

The plane ride ends in a sunrise, and I am grateful, finally, for this holiday; this reminder to read into ourselves, if nothing else.

I am April.

I am alone.

I am myself.