Red Heart Balloon Era
By Amanda Chiado
My mother calls this my red heart balloon era. I have stopped sleeping. I tied the red balloon around my wrist years ago, so I would not lose it. Now, I drag the deflated phantom. The string started umbilical tender.
The string’s grown noose. We all carry a cold tow rope called connection. Yesterday, there was a soft rustling in the red latex as I yanked it along to church. It whispered my name all through the Lord’s Prayer. Hummed
through the Hail Mary. When I got home, I pinned the red balloon down into an old bassinet and drew out my scalpel. Within the sticky red confines, an unexpected caterpillar with long white hair, both old and young, emerged.
I wept like I do when I look at old photographs of my children, and aging parents. She birthed herself from the slit of the deflated red heart balloon, crawled down my wrist, and ate the tattered string tying me down to earth.
Her first meal set me free. I slid into the Marian blue Albuquerque sky, Sleepy, finally, and impressed by my transcendent red heart balloon era.
Richard Hanus, Image 2, 2024, ink on paper, 6" x 4".
Amanda Chiado is a writer, poet, teacher, and arts advocate. She holds degrees from the University of New Mexico, California College of the Arts, and Grand Canyon University. Amanda won the Press 53 Poetry Award 2026 for her prose poetry collection “Today I Wear the Bear Head,” and is the author of the chapbook “Prime Cuts” (Bottlecap Press, 2025) and “Vitiligod: The Ascension of Michael Jackson” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her poetry and fiction have been published in DMQ Review, The Account, Southeast Review, RHINO, and others. She is an alumna of the Community of Writers and the Highlights Foundation. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net. She is the Director of Arts Education at the San Benito County Arts Council, is a California Poet in the Schools, and edits for Jersey Devil Press. She's passionate about birds, horror movies, ballet, magic, and laughter. She lives in Hollister, California, with her husband, son, daughter, and mother.
Richard Hanus had four kids but now just three. He has more than 200 images published in "little magazines" nationally and internationally since 2020. The eclectic nature of his subject matter and media has allowed him to explore the arts in breadth and depth.