balloon – So It Goes

Death becomes me —

that’s what I think
as I send an unflattering
photo of my greying
and purple face to you.

It’s the little things,
like the growing ache
and the discolored lips
and the persistent thoughts
that shake me so violently.

My caverness body
echoes with each
dropping pin of emotion,
each forming shadow,
each stirring notion.

I’m holding on
as I always do,
but these rocks
I cling to seem to pull
me further down, down

and I’m sputtering.
I’m looking for something
to glimmer, for
that shining, useful body
I inhabit.

Death becomes me —

that’s what I think
as I stare into the mirror
and see a young girl
peeling herself away from
the world.

I hold on to her
as if she is a balloon,
tethered by spider webs
and ribbon.

She might fly away one day,
accepting an inevitability
of all stardust,
but today she remains rooted,
tied tight around a bruising wrist.

He lifts his chin to stare into the sky,
fingers floating up to touch the clouds.

He chases the phantom of a girl he once knew.
It’s crazy, he knows,
but she still exists somewhere.

She is the rustle in the hallway,
the reflection in the window on the bus,
the voice in his head after all of the fighting has stopped.

She left too soon and too fast,
searching for something no one else could hear,
never knowing a boy was left scared and alone —
a boy without the right words.

He wonders what it would be like to float,
to follow his red balloon daydream.

It must not be hard, he thought.
Anything would do…

As he dreams of red balloons,
a girl stares at him, contemplating his issue.

He doesn’t hear the drumming, not yet,
not like the girl she could not save,
but he must want her help.

So she wears her hair long, hiding behind the curtain,
hiding her truth —
her ability to stare to people’s souls,
her ability to end the drumming.

She sees pain in the poor boy,
looking at the clouds,
dangerously searching for something
he cannot fathom.

Tag: balloon

Thoughts of late

Poor Boy (Lost #2)