A summer wind whips through the air and the trees
Lightning dabbles the sky like a quick paint brush
It’s stunning
Tree limbs bend as the wind moves through them
Like a dance
The sky lightens up from the electric charge moving through
The air fills with the sound of thunder
It’s pounding a rhythm
A summer storm is fast approaching
Playing the wind chimes outside like a musical instrument
As they clang back and forth to the rhythm of the wind
Hold on
It’s coming

Located near a State Park
Docks for boats and fishing
Blowfish swell like mini basketballs hoping humans won"t cut off their edible tails
Two little girls in yellow and orange bathing suits with vertical orange stripes  on top
Jump on swings on the sand trying to pump high and jump into the ocean
Captree childhood beach days

How can I tell you
Just what you mean?
How can I say the things
I can't even say to me?

It will all be over
We will be left to want
What neither can have
An eternal taunt

But we will remember
The words we have written
They are etched into hearts
Left bereft yet smitten

Some things are easier
Said than undone
We try to fight it
But it cannot be won

The curtain now has fully closed-
So why am I still on this stage
Declaiming words I never wrote.

Why am I in fancy costume, with
Heavy makeup on my face
To hide the wrinkles of my failings
And paint me as a thespian.

Cast in a play they say I’ve written
With a pen that's never touched my hand
And a last act that I’ve never seen.

I haven’t learned the blocking yet,
So I don’t know which way to move
Or which door I should exit through
And what will be my final lines.

As lights go down from the Interval
The audience regains their seats
To watch me in the final scene.
  ^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
It’s over so I bow to scant applause
And no one comes to hand me flowers.
I stumble as the lights go slowly out,
And make my way from memory
To my dressing room down a dusty hall
Where I will take this garish makeup off
And walk home as the girl I really am.
                        ljm