The Balloon that Drifted away

​I slipped from a small, steady hand​
​on a morning that smelled like cake
​when laughter rose faster than I did
​and the world forgot to look up for me.

I climbed past rooftops and ringing voices,
past fingers that almost remembered,
carrying the warmth of that moment
like sunlight still tied to my skin.

The wind spoke in quick, restless sentences,
pushing me where maps don’t go,
and clouds, slow as wandering thoughts,
watched me without asking my name.

A bird passed—effortless, certain—
and said, “Up here, nothing stays…”
I followed its curve through silence
though I didn't yet know what it meant.

Below, the world became smaller stories—
a moving blur of almost-home,
while I learned that distance can grow
even when nothing is falling.

I thought of the hand I had left behind,
not tight, not holding too hard—
just warm enough to feel like belonging,
just soft enough to let me choose the sky.

The higher I went, the quieter I became,
not empty, but stretched thin with thought,
as if even the air was remembering
something I could no longer touch.

And then I understood—too softly to speak it…
​freedom was not the sky itself,
​but the strange weight of being carried
​by something you can no longer carry back.​

Now I drift where endings don’t land,
​where the blue has no edges to return from,
and still I hold, in my fading curve of light,
the shape of a hand that once let me go.