Palloon?
Someone once told me that poetry is a balloon
make of that what you will
yes I will, baby
yes I shall
the world is not an oyster, and certainly not mine
it’s a balloon, you see
it makes a funny noise when it pops
something loud, something sudden
something you would laugh at,
if you weren’t a part of the ecosystem
you’d get it if you saw something pretty enough to be
blinding
a solar eclipse, a nuclear explosion
your own face in the mirror
unlikely enough to be
the enemy dying
of course, it depends on the side you were on
it’s human to have a nature
like this
I don’t blame you for the afterthought,
I blame you for everything else.
Good morning, hello everyone
my name is so and so, and when I grow up,
I want to be something I don’t know a thing about
yet, but
this is why I cried on my way out my mother’s body
this is something I know
perhaps the only thing
my name is this and this, dream this and this and-
I don’t want to make a funny noise when I pop
out
it’s a childish fantasy so you must entertain it
at my age
I read stories about good children drifting away into
the stratosphere
losing helium in gentle soft pillows
when
we laugh at each other and strike a pin into the rubber
of our brothers,
I steal their pillows
and pump myself higher
and higher.
Copyright © Hiba Junaid | Year Posted 2025
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