This Balloon that Refuses to Pop

Maybe I am so helplessly drunk, or merely over sentimental. But this state of bliss is literally filling me in. Even when I think I’ve had enough, yet this happiness keeps penetrating me, again and again. Sometimes I tell myself, “you must have been dreaming, young lady; for feeling this beautiful, this serene, and simply complete.” As what has happened in my life this couple of months is seriously extraordinary. Then I will reply to my own inquiry, “indeed, you are right, my dear. I must have been dreaming. This state of happiness is only a delusion. It’s not real. It can’t be real by any chance.” And so I will close my eyes, cover my face with both hands, and try to let the illusion fade away. Yet, they stay. I can still feel the rush of those wonderful feelings inside of me. It’s bubbling. It makes my tiny body appears too small for its giant becoming.

I am about to explode. I am a rubber balloon which has reached the limit of its elasticity. It seems so much that I am going to pop. This quirky pleasant feeling is just like a gas that fills me, probably helium, hydrogen, oxygen, or plainly air, or probably even the combination of all. I don’t know for sure as it is invisible. It always is. Like the air that you breathe, you can never ever see it, but you know that it’s real. You can feel that something is going in and out. Something is being pushed to enter you that you can’t help billowing. And so how this wonderful feeling appears to me. Something fine that races to reach and save a place inside of me. 

Somehow, I feel strange lately. Despite its huge amount, this massive race of that different kind of gas doesn’t seem to put a stress on this tiny little balloon. I thought I was ready to explode, to pop. I reckoned this air inside my body just could not wait to escape, to get out fast and go back to where they belong. I was wrong. I was looking down to this very own rubber balloon of mine. It is more powerful than it used to be. It seems like it doesn’t have a limit to its elasticity. No matter how much it is filled, it stays invulnerable. It keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Maybe this is how love is supposed to work in the first place. It fills you with the feeling of happiness, excitement, captivation, and affection without necessarily forcing a tear on you. All it has to give is something pleasant, in the absence of any single inconvenience. It holds you in the arms of security so tightly, yet still have the will to set you free, sincerely. Love, once it comes to you, it plies you with its glory. And your body will inevitably turn into a giant balloon in this oh-appear-so-tiny universe.  Then this balloon will fly far, far away, and leave the gravity behind. It is gracefully floating, bouncing here and there. Guess what is even better? It can retain its buoyancy for good, for the rest of its life.

Love, once it fills you, it eventually puts you to the highest degree of being a human. God's creature that needs something to validate its existence. And I am now clearly at my best moment of being one, or should I say of being a rubber balloon? Yes, honey, I’m wonderfully bubbling. My world has ridiculously turned inside out, upside down, since that very day when you put the ring on my finger. And you are to me, is this perfect air to breath in, something that I greedily want more and more. Yet, it stays harmless. It can never hurt me, not even to leave a single scratch on my elastic skin. So no worries, honey, I will not explode. Thus I require you to keep me occupied every now and then. Cause the way I see myself now, is a rubber balloon that refuses to pop. 



*Dedicated to Jasa; "you're constantly filling me in, and I can't help greedily letting you in."