Balloon

Like the books we like, the films we admire, our thing is just a balloon. Something elastic and changeable yet always the same shape. The space it leaves for you or I to fill it with whatever we will make of it. Fragile, in the kind of way a living thing is fragile, shake it too hard and it might burst. Even when it is repaired, it will never be quite as resilient.

I am rough with my things. I let my motorcycle rattle apart, my clothes tear in the wash. There is paint on my shoes. Our thing is ravaged in my hands. I have turned the corners down. I have dropped it in the bath and the pages have swelled. Still it has not burst yet although I have stretched it to breaking point. We breathe life into the structure of it and it is what we bring to it. We are good. Different but good. Our thing will change with each shared breath. The kiss of life perhaps. A kiss, anyway because there is room for some love in the analogy.