The Difference Between a Balloon

A toy balloon is a relationship between two people.

   Not having been inflated, it just lies there, a nothing.

One or the other person can inflate it.                   

     If left alone, after having been inflated and held or tied,

       it will eventually lose all its air and again become nothing.

      But it can last indefinitely if both parties reinflate           

in his or her turn.                                                

     It can take a lot of inflating and deflating and reinflating

and still retain its strength,                                    

                    although too much of the process will stretch it way out of shape.

       It can take a lot of batting around in the air if one catches

it carefully on its way down.                                   

     What a balloon can’t take is someone constantly grabbing

and pulling at it to make it shriek or someone           

shoving through it a sharp object.                            

After it’s burst, there’s no repairing a balloon. 

BACK