In the Shadow of a Balloon

one day i took a hot air balloon

into the sky of my mind

and i drifted toward a twilight-scented place

and there i met you

i recall

you were in your own hot air balloon

flying and swirling like the way a dream would take us

and sweep us away….

i want to reach the clouds

you said

my head’s full of them

i said

mine too!

where are you headed?

i don’t really know

is it somewhere between the land and the sea

and the blurry edges of reality?

it seems so, that’s where i’m stuck

me too!

you smiled and i smiled back

as our hot air balloons caught the same wind

it’s better to fly, isn’t it?

definitely better than walking on earth

exactly!

we laughed together

so where are you headed?

i don’t really know myself

is it somewhere between life and fantasy

where the edges of the earth meet the universe?

it seems so, that’s where i’m stuck

you smiled a friendly smile

then let’s take this journey together

you reached out your hand

and i instinctively took it
then we tied our balloons together with the silken string of our minds

knotting our pearly dreams and weaving our luminescent thoughts

through them

as we sailed our iridescent imaginations

with fantasy as our only reality-

for we had caught the same wind you and I

and ran into each other across space and time

and we found we were able to paint ourselves

a new horizon with the paintbrush of our dreams

and the magic of our minds paving the way

to a different kind of future

-Poetry by Erika (a very talented young woman)