He said he’d always be there to buy me balloons. They represented my dreams, my ambitions. Oh, how I wanted to be a group of balloons! Multi-colored, filled to the bursting point with life. I wanted to be bought in a store, picked out as best amongst the rest by a kid with a plan. A plan to set me free.
The kid would take me to the park, pulling me, tugging me, for I would have been aching for the sky like an overzealous bird. Finally, I’d be let go. Some of me would be caught in a tree, to rest until death. But the rest would go. Up. Up. Up… until the atmosphere obliterated me.
I would meet him in the park, where he’d try to hide the balloons behind his back. We’d pick a new place each time to set them off, and I’d always talk for hours about what I had let go that time, what I had gained that time, how I longed passionately to be those balloons!
And, after years of living in my imaginary world of freedom, I found myself at the same park, with the same dreams. Going nowhere.