Boundless

When I was young, maybe six or seven, someone gave me a red helium balloon. They tied it loosely to my wrist for safekeeping, and I remember my curiosity at the way that balloon would urge for the sky. I saw the sun through it, something baleful and red, and I laughed. I worked the ribbon from my wrist to my hand; I would pull the balloon down, and delight in how quickly it rose again. It just pulled at my fingers… it wanted something so badly, in a way I never had. It wanted the clouds, and the birds, and the sky. It finally happened, I let it slip from my fingers, and I watched the way it rose towards its lover… not in a straight line, not just whoosh and up, but instead, back and forth. Drifting with the wind. I watched as it skittered above the oaks, just there, where my hand couldn’t reach. I think maybe they expected me to cry, but instead… I don’t know. There was something about the way it rose, side-to-side, unencumbered by anything other than the weight of the wind. Now, that is my most consistent dream, losing my balloon, watching it rise above the trees. Someone has let me go, you know. Someone has loosed my ribbon. And I am rising for the sky, the clouds, the birds, but maybe not in a straight line. Maybe I dip for the trees for a bit, lose myself just there, wander where the horizon blends the fire and the gray. But the journey is the same, I will find my love amongst the clouds. I will become red, sketched against the boundless stretch of the sky.