I am building in quiet rain for today;
shoring up a long projected forecast
of epic proportions in meteorological sorcery,
but soundless are the rippled inner predictions
of my forthcoming howls;
whipping protective coverings off the hinges
locked behind my trembling lips:
stifled echoes sourced from silent gatherings
of my heart’s heavily expectant grief—
heaving and already beaten before a quickening
pace of the coming storms;
though there should be no more thunder
hiding in the clouds,
and I doubt I have it in me yet
to clash again so soon;
after your lightning has felled every tree in my forest;
after your slash and burn plays for better meadows in a second life left me standing dumbstruck
in a flash graveyard for the bones of all my willows;
Dominos toppled on so many hopeless,
wooden promises of less opportunities for weeping,
logged and dropped harder with every moment you’d rather choose to see the devil in my dancing, but please believe I tried.

…or don’t,

but know instead—
I have already fallen,
and this is not about the whether anymore.

It was with Love in which I hedged a different bet;
wild awake, and on some days shameless,
sun-soaked drenching sweat
and drinking sweet nectars of future’s peace,
without you around will be how I’ll know
exactly what it is I’ve won,
as the ground beneath my feet starves and cries
to desert eyes
for another droplet of my water soul,
and I ask for it patience once more,
as twilight always seemed to me
to be a little less withholding:
a pairing of salt and acids more flavorful
by way of moonshine on my cheek;
candleless vigils undiluted
by the longest mourning’s eventual passing,
when there are no pastures left
for me to fall empty,
and every sheep numbered can rival the stars
in sleeplessness,
and it will finally be nobody’s fault
except that first bed you made:
a crib of brittle flowers I could never bring myself
to lie down upon,
so tastefully planted in scarcity; a garden
I never wanted to fight for,
but still wound up dead inside of anyway—
buried between sheets at least for my part,
and one day at last forever.

Things should not have to hurt this much
to be made to sound so beautiful,
but here we are:
hoping our words might count for something,
and I will pat myself on the back
although I cannot see it,
and I will keep building in this quiet rain today,
as it is part of The Magic of Moving On too,
and tomorrow might come
with needs for a hurricane.

Just Breathe.

© All Rights Reserved