i smell a thunderstorm upon the air.
it brews silently, warning me to be prepared.
i tread silently, hoping the storm will blow past me if i walk on eggshells. If i make myself silent, if i avoid the twigs on the forest floor, that will alert the monster to my presence
it rained today, as Mother Earth leaned her head on my shoulders and wept away her troubles.
it is night. And the sky is a dark shade of purple and navy blue. the air is thick with silence, the only noises being the solidarity click of a lighter and the drawn-out wheeze of the wind displacing the graveyard inside her chest.
the occasional thunder of a cough, a raspy chuckle, and the soft strains of a country song that's not quite on mute.
the flicker and whispers of struck flint and exhaled smoke and the roughly sewn patterns of a death rattle, the thread holding onto life fraying with every heave is the only method of communication
it's as if we are speaking to one another, reassuring one another.
"i'm here."
"You're not alone. The night is dragging on endlessly, and I'm hurting, too."
we both wait with baited breath for dawn, where we will undoubtedly hitch on another sunny smile and bless the world with our presence.
Except i won't. i am not the gentle rain of a goddess who can not bear the pain alone anymore.
i am a hurricane, a warrior who charges into blossoming meadows of peace with war cries and self-destruction.
i take down mellow sunflowers and thorn roses with me, trampling the flower beds and howling at the moon.
i am a lone wolf, a scavenger, always brooding in the shadows of despair, the late nights, the footprints of a straggler in no-man's land.
i am messy and carefree, a storm who just needs to rage and scream. i am not quiet because i can be, i'm saving my energy for the whirlwind of self-loathing and righteous anger that surely awaits the haven i made from the rubble of the last breakdown
i am a tsunami of frustration and hidden feelings, a typhoon of anger and barely concealed resentment, and a thirst for power i am ill-suited to handle.
if rain is a gentle goddess and i am a hurricane, then that finally explains what i so often wondered in my youth.
it explains why
storms
are
named
after
people.
JM
YOU ARE READING
sunflowers and steel chains
Poetry"He's sunflowers and steel chains New scars compensating for old pain The sun's shining but he's facing the other way He's quiet, he don't know what to say" warning: this book contains the unfiltered thoughts of a young man using words as his therap...
