Grounded

Morning came and you let it. No call to make this time. There is no name that fixes it, no number, no clean line. The thing you broke stayed broken, and nobody flew it down. You sat there in the wreckage of it, hands flat, the engine off, no sound. And for years it never cost you. For years it never caught. The wind was always at your back, so you never felt the thought. Now the wheels are on the runway, now the long flight finally ends. Grounded. Held in place. Made to answer. The first thing in your life that doesn't bend. It hurts the way the true things hurt, and still you let it stand. You are down. You are still. You can feel the ground beneath your hand. Cold brass of the door handle, real against your palm. Your own weight in a hard chair, your own pulse, slow and calm. You could not feel a thing for years, you bought the world and missed it whole. Now a cold door handle finds you, and something old comes back behind your eyes. This cannot go on the way it went. The loop runs out of road. You are losing something real at last, and the loss is the only thing you chose. Now the wheels are on the runway, now the long flight finally ends. Grounded. Held in place. Made to answer. The first thing in your life that doesn't bend. It hurts the way the true things hurt, and still you let it stand. You are down. You are still. You can feel the ground beneath your hand. (Ohhh, oh-oh) (Ohhh, oh-oh) The plane is on the ground now. Engine off. The cabin still. A door left open, not just cracked, and quiet where the noise was, quiet, and the will. It is sad and it is over, and the sad part is the proof. You are down. You are home. You can feel the floor hold all of you. You can feel the floor hold all of you. (grounded) You can feel the floor.