When she was sixteen, she swore to herself,
She would blow a balloon so big
It would touch the sky;
She would blow a balloon so huge
It would caress the heavens
And angels could sit on it and dine.
her balloon, her balloon
Would twist the sun's rays into myriads of rainbows
And the rainbows would crown the earth in a halo of light.
her balloon, her balloon..
The balloon blown from her own two lips,
Made from the efforts of their own two lungs.
Would bring beauty to the world.
And she was sure she could,
When she was sixteen.
For sixteen, that sweet, sweet sixteen
It was a threshold of magic and song
Toes of a child leading
The dance into the mystic depths of adulthood.
Sixteen,
The time when maturity and sobriety coats like chiffon
Soft and warm and welcome.
She would spin and twirl and the chiffon
Would billow and blow about her knees
And she would bask in the beauty of it all.
The balloon within her grew and grew;
Tingles ran through her
From the tips of her hair to the hips of her toes
She felt light as air and free as wind
And she let forth a burble of laughter.
The lands and seas seemed bright and beautiful
As she announced to the world;
Wouldn't it be wonderful
And wouldn't it be beautiful,
If for my sweet sixteen I blew
The biggest balloon ever in the whole entire world?
Her aunt frowned and said,
"You can't be serious, it's impossible!"
Her uncle simply shook his head,
"Absolutely, you can't do that"
And her sister snorted and said,
"For God's sake you're turning sixteen not six,
You're speaking like a child."
Beneath her toes she felt the cold marble floor
Her hair pulled on her head.
With blinking eyes and shaking lips
She turned to her parents
Her father, ever practical, had questions,
"Where would you put it?"
"How could you blow it?"
"And where on earth would you find that much rubber?"
Her mother smoothed her hand over her head
And looked at her with a sad little smile,
"Honey, she said, be realistic"
"You're turning sixteen in just a day"
"You're going to be a woman, full-fledged and beautiful"
"You will do great deeds in you life,"
"But sweetie, it's time you grew up"
That's, after all, what sixteen is for.
All the bubbles vanished,
The rainbows in the clouds cracked.
Their words shot like needles from their mouths
Prodding at the balloon of her dreams
At her magnificent balloon, light as air,
Radiant and majestic,
Poking, prodding, tearing.
Her mother's hand,
Which so softly and kindly patted her head
Seemed heavy as a rock,
Flattening her pushing her towards
The hard, unyielding ground.
The dam cracked, the flood came
And they all they could do was watch on,
In confusion, in such frustration.
It was nearing midnight,
Eleven-fifty-nine to be exact.
This very day,
Sixteen full years ago,
A girl danced and sang her way into the world.
And sixteen full years from that every day,
A girl sat and watched the midnight sky.
She watched a little girl with a dress so light
Run away towards the moon
Leaping and spinning, twirling and dancing.
Her hand clutched the string of an almighty balloon
And as she ran, as the minute hand ticked, slowly, unfalteringly,
The little girl faded, her balloon merged with the moon.
Then the minute hand struck twelve and she was not sixteen
Anymore but sixteen and a day.
Chiffon morphed into cotton,
And although cotton still billowed and blew
It inevitably floated nearer the ground.
And she knew, deep in her heart,
That one day cotton would harden
Into wool, into leather, into mail
But when those days came she would welcome them
For she could keep her air-light balloon safe in her heart.
Right next to her lungs
Where she could blow on them whenever she wished.
It would be small, fist-sized instead of reaching the skies,
Yet it would be strong as stone,
For nothing then could pierce through her and her balloon.
