paper planes in the sky

for all the things we let go of, hoping the sky would hold them better than we ever could

some dreams do not come with a thunder. they are folded. hesitant. thin as air. constructed of moments you did not even have time to grasp - such as when she laughed unaware that you were eavesdropping, or when someone spoke your name as if they were missing it. those are the things you make paper planes from. fragile things. delicate things. things that shouldn't get pitched into the wind but have anyway - because hope has never been quite so unruly.

- through chatgpt

you convince yourself they'll get there - some open hand, some familiar face, someone still holding on the other side of a silence you never intended to leave permanent. but most times, they just disappear. and you don't always realize it's happening. the sky doesn't forewarn you before it forgets. the air doesn't tell you this won't make it.

they just become invisible.

and all you’re left with is the gesture - the throwing. the ache. the hope that looked too much like desperation, and the silence that arrived instead.

there was a point when i believed i could coax people back if i folded right enough. if i said the right thing at the right moment. if i launched what remained of my feelings with just the correct amount of force - not too much, not too little - it would hit at their feet and they'd recall. what we were. who i was. how once, they cradled me like something precious.

but that's the deception memory does to you. that it counts. that it's on both sides. that just because you're holding on, someone else is too. the truth is, some people never even glance up.

and that hurts softly.

not unlike heartbreak, not unlike rage - but more like discovering the light in the window was not intended for you. like learning home was not where you left it. like discovering the map you were constantly drawing from was merely an inventory of locations where you were no longer welcome.

but still - you fold up.

because that is what people like us do.

we cannot help but hope.

we write letters that no one will read. we whisper names no one says in return. we recall birthdays we shouldn't. we bear whole seasons in our chest, hoping for a response that never arrives.

still, we send.

up above our heads somewhere in the blue is a cemetery of paper items. some left undone. some left unwritten. some caught by rain and never quite the same since. but there they are - sewn into the sky like unnamable stars.

and i believe that's what makes us human.

the courage to start even when we realize the sky isn't listening. the bravery to send parts of ourselves into a silence that might not bring them back.

occasionally, in the dead of night, i wonder where they went - all those paper planes i flew as a child, all those i creased out of sadness, or shame, or the sort of love that cannot last in the real world. perhaps some of them made it somewhere. perhaps someone touched one, spread it out, and was less lonely for a minute. perhaps not. perhaps they fell apart in mid-air.

but even if they didn't survive - they existed.

and so did i.

i believe that's what this is all about - not getting caught, but being brave enough to leap into something and not ask to be given back. not anticipate permanence, or praise, or even a response. just flight. just movement. just the opportunity to be noticed, even if only by the wind.

because there were dreams that never were supposed to touch down.

they were only ever supposed to soar.

and if i have to be anything -

let me be one of those.

unsteady.

unfinished.

light enough to lift.

brave enough to go.