if we all had balloons

at the end of your long rope,
reminders of all the pushing and pulling,
frayed ends,
carving scar tissue reasons on your taut skin

there are a hundred little voices that go on babbling all the ideas,
the justifications,
the great evasions,
when you circumnavigated your own breathing process and found your words completely divorced from the ways your hands moved

on the night before the night you left,
i blindfolded myself and let the bell jar descend over my speech,
everything echoing back at me,
until it was nothing but reflections ricocheting off the glass,
and my new found monastery of a silent mouth,
the sun refracting through the cloudy globe,
my big dawn of hopeful tomorrows,
questions in equations that never added up

you walked into the water,
multiplied the void between you and this reality,
while we stood and read streaming scripture in the red and blue fireworks,
the lazy celebratory act of pride in a country we now curse

you walked into the oceanic waveforms,
just to pour salt in your broken wounds,
come back riddled and remorseful,
wrinkling your face into new ways of wondering - 'what if'

you,
walked into the flood

i,
just watched you jump