Words Floating In The Air

“Only The Words Remain, Floating In The Air”
In the passageway of his home made of broken garage doors,
this he told me of promises, and I inhaled it in my heart.

I imagined airplanes that never touch down, but circle incessantly
with giant fish shadows, sweep through the sky like it was an ocean,

and swim between the gathering clouds of more flights
and jets of smoke. It’s all I can do to hold my breath

when I’m a passenger, stuck where the air becomes thin.
But other marbled days I’m your childhood balloon man

who handed you the red one at the fair, or on your 3rd birthday.
The parents buy so many balloons, it’s not out of the blue

to hear that one more child has floated away,
clutching the thin strings that tug at his rainbow.

The wind pushes and some days I don’t come home,
asleep in its gray current, as cold as winter rivers.

At times I remember my feet pounding down a steep green hill,
but more often I forget the touch of dirt and the force of gravity.

This truth isn’t so strange as it is the dark side of nature,
these clouds rising, the ensuing fall of rain and thunder,

the light illuminating blackness, the sound, a crashing echo.
All across the world, lightning leaps the hollow chasm

between abandoned words left floating in the air
and where we stand, proud as trees on a golden plain.

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So the last couple days in my Spanish Education class we watched a documentary about the assembly workers in Tijuana, Mexico and about the environmental impact that the factories have had there. In one part, a man is asked about how the gov't is supposed to supplied them safe electric lines (his daughter was almost electrocuted to death by a live wire), drainage, and other public necessities. Each campaign they promise it, but when it's over "only the words remain, floating in the air." (the title of my poem). The words really stuck with me and I thought about them enough to write a poem about unfulfilled promises. This is my attempt at that. My concept was to apply this idea of unfulfilled promises not only to politics, but to parents and people in general. Now my parents are awesome, but it does seem with the disintegration of the family that in general things aren't going so well. All this being said, is that what was understood, or is it just a confusing poem with lots of images. Let me know! Hope you enjoyed it!