Thinks & Inks

The Balloon

It was pink and punctured

Entangled in bare branches

Discarded, let go

The balloon was meant to make her feel better

Maybe the cancer would go away

It was meant to make her smile, if not for just one day

But when they got to the hospital,

They were too late

The balloon didn’t matter, nothing mattered

So she let the balloon go, just like her sister had

She let go of the pain, the happiness

Watching as the wind took the balloon captive in it’s claws

But instead of soaring, like she so hoped it would

It ran into the tree, deflating in a sigh

She turned away from the balloon, from the branches,

From the cancer

The wind picked up, snapping the balloon back and forth

Grating her ears as she remembered the sight

Of sunken eyes and watery smiles

The bleeding heart, the crying eyes

That balloon would never soar

Her sister would never breathe

She turned away from the tree

And the wind that had broken her dreams