BEDROOM is the last stamp on your passport. Across your chest, down the length of your skin (and bone), the weight of feathers. You are pinned. Butterfly, bird, chrysalis. Must we all desire flight? New horizons? You can see all the way to the end of your bed and this is far enough. Close one eye and your nose is a mountain, the world at its summit. Take a bath, they say, a lengthy lavender soak in the claw-footed tub. Listen to your heart beat, beat, beat (yourself up). Get outside, they say. Breathe the air of the seasons. Take the air. Take it with you. You know, without getting up, where your shoes are. Your FeatherLite (stop your) carry-on. Were it not for border control you would travel far. All the way to the kitchen to look out the window at the lengthening grass. It is spring, time for (passport) renewal. If you manage to crawl, beetle height, nose to earth, is this not enough? Expedition highlight: ladybird. Travel light, taking only air.

From Travel, an anthology of microfiction published by Spineless Wonders, 2022.