dreaming and flying

some days
I look up
and the sky stretches wide over the world I call home
bigger than anything my brain can
conjure up in the middle of the night when nothing keeps it from dreaming

and it doesn't end, because
no one doubted it and said it had to
no one told it
to look where it was going
to pace itself as it
raced into the unknown
to stop and think and breathe for a minute

no, it just
kept going and going and now it's up above me
and I keep staring
up
up
up
at this world of perfect blue
and I dream

what if one day I
couldn't help myself, and I

drifted up
from the sidewalk, and I

soared into that blue where
no one could stop me, and I

stared down at a left-behind world
full of tiny people that I wasn't a part of anymore, because I

broke free and
flew, brave and strong and powerful, and I

became one with the world?

As I look up at the sky and dream, I know that
if I were a different person
full of courage and hope and a yearning for adventure
someone itching to leave this world far, far behind
someone ready to start fresh
without cares
without doubts--

maybe then, I would want
to float up to the sky and conquer the world

but I'm not anyone else but
afraid little me, and as I wonder about
flying millions of miles high, I can only know
that I'm glad my feet are on the ground.