there are no seatbelts for this

you will fly. often. sometimes without choice. most times alone. you will learn to read your body like a thermometer, to breathe time like a language, to fold your limbs inward like a human paper crane on long nights across the oceans - crammed into a window seat between the stars and a man sitting in seat 20E that's snoring just a touch too loudly. you make your bed in between time zones, and never really fall asleep. 

twenty-one, studying abroad, you will find yourself in a café in brixton, staring through glass windows at the butcher shop across the street and fiddling with an oyster card that's 0.45p too shy of a tube ride home. your nail polish is peeling at the edges and there are tiny, ragged mauve islands in the middle of your nails. the barista asks you if you're just visiting. you swallow the last bit of your earl grey and find yourself wondering what does it mean to visit a place if you're not even sure where you're from, but these are words that dissolve in the back of your throat, so you merely nod, yes. visiting. there are sweeter things to go with his tea. 

through all your years in this city you will sleep with Home Depot boxes folded, pressed, tucked like prayers into the tiny alcove between door and wall. the front flaps are miniature maps of all the places you've lived: Goddard Hall, 3rd floor. Broome Street, 8th floor. then 7th. and back up to 8th. Paris. Stuyvesant Town. Brooklyn. your initials written over and over like a litany. each year the markers bleed differently, but the hymn stays the same. please. let me stay.