Weightless moments in a child’s room
A Poem
I feel weightless.
Not the In-love kind
When your body defies
The laws of gravity -
Your feet gliding and
Your head as light as the
First taste of a lovers lips.
I feel weightless.
Not the Happy-pills kind
Their designer indifference
Leaves me vibrating
Multiples of myself –
Blurred and doubled like
Some shakily taken Polaroid.
I feel weightless.
Not the Zero-G kind
Where everyone looks happy
In their Astro-blue jumpsuits
Performing slow burls and
Catching pearly water globules
In kiss-puckered lips.
I feel weightless
Like a well-won carnival balloon
Trussed to a happy stranger’s wrist;
Dragged off by a handcuff of string
Like a common criminal.
Futile attempts at escape are
Kept in check with the occasional
Jolt by my captor.
I will the string to break but
What use is helium against the
Stubbornness of a synthetic
Umbilical cord.
Above the shouts and laughter of
Jovial families I hear the call-
The blue-tinged twilight beckons
As pink-stained clouds whisper
Promises of sweet pleasures
And a soft, lullaby death
My hollowed body will never know;
The shackle sees to that.
Instead, I’m confined to a cell
Where the sky is a closed ceiling
And the cluttered floor below
Whispers its own promises,
But not like those of the clouds –
No. These are lead-heavy and menacing.
In time my helium breath dissipates
And I begin my inevitable descent.
My starved skin fades to
A seasick version of its once
Vibrant self;
Wrinkle-tired, I sink to
The ground, becoming just another
Unwanted trinket in a
Graveyard of discarded moments.
With Guantanamo hospitality
My orange body is grabbed
And I drop into the
Dark plastic void.
I wonder if he’ll remember the
Brief, happy moment we shared.
The bag closes
And I am exiled from memory.
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