I have this weird irrational fear of kites.
It always grants a funny look.
They’ll laugh and ask me why, and I’ll say I don’t know, and they’ll tell me they’re scared of the sea or the sky. There’s never really much follow-up as to why, and I wouldn’t know how to answer anyway. I suppose a fear is in the sinking feeling.
I’ve only held a kite once: on a beach when I was little with my dad, or something like that, and I suppose that I only really remember the feeling. This floating thing, and it’s entire existence dependant on my little grasp - I can’t stand that. They’ll wonder why that is. Maybe the pull? I hold the string and the fucker tugs away. If I let go, I’ve let go and it’s gone. Gone away with the wind to fall somewhere new and free. And as it pulls, I’ll think - what does the kite want? It takes turns looking back to me and to the sky. I know which I’d pick. Maybe it’s the hold? String feels thinner in between your fingers, it can slip away like days. It will start to feel sharp in my palms and I’m faced with the new dilemma of an increasingly sore wrist, and the decision of what the hell to do with all these awful burdens. I’ve never been much of a problem solver.
After birthday parties, or trips to the beach, mum would tie my balloon to my wrist. I’ve always thought that was clever: that’s it mum, cut it off at the source. They’ll never escape if it’s not me who has to hold them. There’s something sweet about security. But then the truth is this: when my grip fails, and the string slips before me or unravels from the knot around my arm, one quick motion, and the minuscule time frame you’ve got to catch it again before it’s gone too high - just out of reach - passes you by in seconds, then you know that the truth is they’ll always leave you. One moment; a singular smooth execution of betrayal. The taunting as its figure shrinks away in the blue; the helpless knowing you could have kept it but you didn’t. There’s something sinister about security, they won’t come back.
I’ve always wondered then, if it has ever been a fear of kites, or balloons, with their disgustingly thin string and radical alliance with the opposing wind, or that diminishing distance between us, like the last locking of eyes as you drive away from someone you’ll miss, or if whether it’s simply the shape of them.
Then is it something else entirely? If I had once held the lifting spaceship, I could never let myself watch it go.