Dig Those Sunsets, Pony

So, i'm on this plane
but i don't really do heights, right?
Like, freshman year of college
I damn near flunked out first semester fucking with the top bunk in my dorm
I just laid there the whole time in this blanket fort I made
I wrapped it in my mother's prayer beads and my father's guilt
I called the thing "childhood"
and it was really hard to go outside

But, i'm still on this plane, right?
So i'm like thirty thousand feet in the air
with over utilized sweat glands and an under utilized window seat
and this old woman next to me, she seen too much
You know? You can feel it
She wears it like Kevlar now
She's got eyes like the last ditch effort of a Mason jarred firefly
Her headphones are coiled around her neck, hissing loudly
And I could tell she's listening to this Nirvana song, right?
But I can only make out every three words or so
So it sounds like:
"Hey" "I've got a new" "priceless" "noose"

This woman is sizing me up like a prize fighter, you know?
She leans in real close, and she's all:
"You nervous, honey?"
And in my head, i'm just like:
"No, I just like testing the durability of my nails some days," right?
But before I could say anything
She takes her hand and puts it on my chest
And it's wrapped in riot hoses and poplar tree bark and the fresh, violent sun of southern summers

And she says:
"Goddamn, boy. You got a firing squad in there tonight.
A whole lot of guilty men at their disposal.
Yeah, I've known people with hearts like these in my life."
But i'm not really listening to her, you know?
Cause i'm still trying to make out the Nirvana song she's listening to
But I can still only hear like every 3 words
So now it sounds like:
"wait" "I've got a new" "heart-shaped" "cancer"

And this plane is rattling us
like ice cubes kissing the desert floor of a whiskey glass
This woman doesn't even move
She just leans in closer and says:
"You know, you're too young
to fear the rumble of metal and engine
This is what your generation used
to carve the beast that will swallow us whole
Your generation of metal and engine
Do you now fear the silver lining your own pockets?
Do you shake at the avalanche of adulthood?
Do you tremble at the idea
of being swallowed alive in this monster?"

And I say:
"No. No, I fear the sky"
And so this old woman says:
"What has the sky ever done to you that a lover has not?
Have you not been recklessly carried?
Have you not given up control to trust something with wings?
Have you not found your heart held in the jaws of something stainless?
High above a chorus of treetops and city lights and brilliant molecules of water?"

And then she says:
"What is the sky?"
And I say:
"Okay. The sky is a big, blue top bunk."
And she says:
"Honey, child, what is the sky if not a lover;
arched around your body like St. Louis
underneath a drum roll of fireworks?
What is a sky if not a lovers arms?"

And I say:
"Okay. So maybe I don't fear the sky
Maybe I fear the alone my body will feel
when the sky decides to let me go"
And she takes her hand off my chest,
holds it up against the window, pushes it real deep
And she says:
"Look at this. Look at this, child.
From up here, everything pure and white
is magnificent and unbreakable and holy
From up here, we all have such amazing bones"