Balloons and Vulnerability

I hate popping balloons.

Like hydrogen tests, they extinguish with a
Pop, protesting against the invasion of air and the diaphragm holding
The breath
Sighs into the atmosphere.

I imagine the plastic tatters rubbing in my mincing palms
Become moist with the condensations of
Invisible breath, become thighs melting on plastic chair
In the middle of summer.

Do people whisper confessions and breathe hexes
Into their ears, so tomorrow they can
Dig for shards of broken heart and re-
Build a friendship as if yesterday does not exist? Yesterday does not exist

If you can crush the witness beneath your feet.
I cup the conch shell of their remains to my ears, listen to the sound of
Heart stuttering eyes fluttering, the moment the world
Spins.

The secret is safe because the witness is shriveled in my fist
And both of you promised you don’t kiss and tell.

---

 

We all learn to be feminine. It comes
Easier to some, like breathing, born with it
A disposition I never quite learn.
The me in these shots are not quite me,
Unrecognizable (even my brother
Was shook, is disgusted, if I may add)

It feels uncomfortable to be a
Girl, to shift nervously in the warmed seat
And that was a vulnerability
I never observed from my mother
And hence, a shoe I never grew into.

I must have gotten on the wrong spaceship
Between Mars to Venus, only someday
The battle cries staining the ground crimson
Makes me jealous of (a contradiction:
I won’t actually agree if someone
Endowed me with) the softness and beauty
Of Venus. I wish to be those girls yet

The sun and the grime and the carefree
Laughter rolling across the universe
Call to me. I will never be those girls.
The art of femininity eludes
Me, still.