Airborne to Ascend

Response to Medium Magic writing prompt, “You’re a balloon that floats in the sky”

You should be able to get a man to cross the room without ever saying a word, she says and so I learn to entice with coquettish glances, the slow, careful leg cross, the hair toss, the head tilt. Men cross the room, expressing desire and expectation but no conversation. I tell them no and they go away again, to talk to other girls who have something to say.

Looks, money, promised future, prestige, a doctor or lawyer, she says, so these are the men I go out with. They are good looking, wealthy and already established but can’t discuss theater, poetry, or Milton. Conversations stall and we are left with only the mundane.

It’s as easy to fall in love with someone rich as someone poor, she says. Though I try, I find that it isn’t, and wealth does not equal connection.

Spend all day to make yourself look perfect, but make them believe you rolled out of bed looking that way, she says. This I master over time, but it turns into too many lost hours and exhaustion before they’ve even knocked.

Never let a man know who you really are until after you marry him, she says.

Don’t take your makeup off until after your husband is asleep and get up before he does to put it back on, she says.

Never turn down money from your husband, and set it aside for a rainy day, she says, Don’t let him know.

She says.

She says.

ShesaysShesaysShesaysShesays.

When all is said and done, she doesn’t know me, I don’t know them, I have no voice.

Despondent, I go to the park. The benches are filled with girls whose faces mirror my own. A balloon artist makes a long dachshund puppy and then hands out empty balloons. He stops in front of me, offers me a bright red one.

I speak my voice into it, like the other girls do, and soon balloons bob overhead reaching for the sky. A girl with almond eyes comes to where I sit and silently holds out her gold balloon with a shy smile. Not sure I want to give mine away or take responsibility for someone else’s, I hesitate. She waits patiently, her balloon hovers softly aloft.

If I’m not willing to share my voice, how can it make a difference?

Handing my balloon to her, I take hers in hand. All around me girls are exchanging balloons, exchanging voices and holding on tightly, starting to rise upward. The girl with my balloon floats off waving to me.

I feel my feet lift barely and for a moment, I hover, fearful that I will not fulfill the yellow balloon’s purpose.

Closing my eyes, I fill my lungs, and let go of all of the shesays that for so long have kept me tethered. I yearn for freedom, to float, flit, fly.

My soul, now revealed, joins that of the girl holding onto my balloon, and with those of all the others. Each of us dedicate ourselves to nurturing what we have been entrusted with. A sacred mission, my true self exposed, stuttered expression turns to confidence, an unformed girl rises towards completion. I soar upward, feather light, ready for she says to become I say, in the pink morning sky that welcomes me home.

Natalie Frank (Taye Carrol) has had work featured in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press and Zero Fiction among others. Her poetry has been featured a several anthologies. She is the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications.

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