HOT AIR BALLOON

It’s only sometimes when I’m like a kid again, I get so silly high that I forget about everything and blow so much hot air into my own balloon, until there’s no breath left in my lungs, and I start to fall—

like I imagine it is to jump out of a plane that’s very high up. Terror in the beginning, yes. But then boredom. And after boredom, curiosity for the clouds and the air around you, for what you can see and what it is like to fall now that the fear is commonplace.

Having gotten used to the fear of falling, the trauma upon impacting earth is surprising, and brings with it a new pain upon the hard crash landing.

My impact drives me so deep that at first I know it is temporary but at some point so far beneath, I start to wonder whether I’ll ever rise again. So much time in the dark, and deeper, darker all the while,

I start to think I’ll never summit, I start to think that I’ll never return, I start to think I’ll never be the same—I can’t really help it, thinking like this. But boy, when I’m high up there, lighter and higher all the while, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.