Weightless moments in a child’s room

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.