he lives by the airport he likes the noise having grown up by the train tracks making a gentle rumble was more comforting than distracting

some days he would sit constipated by the words that taunted his every day with their incessant murmuring then running away

on those days he would sit at the window and watch the planes circle as they left or returned from exotic places where everything was okay

and he would pretend to shoot lasers from his eyes and cause them to burst in balls of flame and fuselage that fell like icarus and his melted wings

then a moment of revulsion at his actions imaginary or not would snap him back to the ignoble reality lashing itself across his huddled shoulders

yet he still pretends one last shot just in case and sighs with the failure but is relieved that he does not have the power he would surely abuse

childhood memories of wanting to drop pennies off the top of the sears tower to see if they would really go six inches into the concrete far below