Poetry: All forms & styles
Prose Poetry
Pam Alvoledo
THE BIRTHDAY BALLOONS
She lets the birthday balloons go. She dances with her best friend in the backyard. She fucks her boyfriend in her bedroom. She thinks “what now?” as she blows out the candles on the cake her mom got from the pocket-sized bakery. She drives and drives, turning and exiting, over the speed limit, past the time she said she told her mother. She notices the holes in the traffic lights, watches the glowing aqua and rusty red in the night sky. She returns home, hours later, the rain changing her into someone new. The streetlights, televisions, ovens, and lanterns go out throughout her neighborhood. The electricity company says it was balloons tangled in the wire.
About the writer:
Pam Alvoledo is a Michigan-based writer.
Image: Next Exit (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. Public domain via MidJourney AI.
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