That Scary Feeling Of Being A Freed Baloon

Yeah, the baloon I let loose
has become a lone-star, recluse,
floating, art, two-way sadness
and a stoic in search

for my fingers still curled,
but when a breeze brings it
down to the tree we named a name
now unremembered in our childhood,
yeah, freedom has made it ascetic

as if the fright of its solo flight
has filled an immortal but wrong soul
into its rubber skin. At night it

is my moon, the south side of it,
asking ‘why’. “I was scared too.”
I murmur. Crickets form a vast
meadow around us.

Kushal Poddar
Painting Nick Victor