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Releasing demons

Orange, green, red, and blue. Was there a reason she picked four different colors. Would it matter, any four balloons filled with helium would work.  The ribbon tied to each one was just plain old white, very functional.  Then they were tied together into a nice little bouquet.

They floated there in the corner as we talked, unobtrusive and yet flamboyant at the same time.  My eye was drawn to them as we discussed the previous week.  How was my mood, had I had any struggles?  But the elephant in the room was paper on the coffee table in front of me.

Four sheets of college ruled paper stacked neatly one on top the other.  Each page filled with my small straight print. I had spent the last three weeks thinking a lot, writing, ripping up, rewriting.  But I had finally gotten everything out the way I wanted to.  I was nervous and apprehensive, but at the same time relieved.

Our talk about how my week had gone finally wound down.  She indicated my letter and asked if I was ready.  I glanced again at the balloons then down at the coffee table, I know she noticed, but she waited on me.  The concept was easy enough, but was this really going to help?

With an inward sigh I looked up at her and said yes.  She got up from her armchair and went to her desk.  She came back with an envelope and handed it to me.  I laid it on the coffee table and carefully folded my letter in thirds.  Picking up the envelope I carefully inserted the pages and sealed it.  She handed me a hole punch and I carefully pierced the corner.

“Ok, let’s head outside “, she grabbed the balloons and I carried my letter.  Out to the middle of the parking lot.  As she held out the balloons, I took the ribbon and slid it through the hole I had made in the corner of my little missive.  Tying it tightly I let the letter drop and took the balloons in my hand.

“Take as long as you need.”  I had planned on just releasing them, but suddenly I started thinking about the words I had written.  What would his reaction be if he read this, if I told him these thoughts.  But truthfully it did not matter.  This was about me, being able to express how I felt, to see in the words what he had done to me.  What he had done, it was his crime, he was the monster.

It all flooded in on me.  Everything he had done. My humiliation and shame, but my misplaced love as well.  How it had destroyed my sense of self worth.  But to show him I was no longer his victim as well.  I was learning to like myself again.  He needed to know, but no, I needed to say it to him.  This was how I would do that.

Taking a deep breath I released the helium filled bouquet and it slowly started to rise up in the air.  As it got a little higher a breeze caught the balloons and they turned in their course.  They drifted out of the parking lot and across the interstate.  Slowly getting smaller as they got higher and farther away. It began to shift and fade, one moment I could see it and the next gone.  Then back again for a bit.

Finally I could find it no more.  I stood there a while longer, following its track in my mind.  Then I turned back and we went inside.  And you no what, it really did make a difference, sending that letter off.  Somehow it had given me the chance tell him how much he had hurt me and to tell myself I had survived.  It had lifted a weight off my shoulders.  

A door had been opened and that ribbon, like chains, had drug this demon away with it.  But others still lurked in my darkness, haunting me, taunting me, controlling my desires.  I would have to be happy with this one small step I had taken in my healing.
Written by Sunwolfe1745
Published
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