An animal
set free by the sound;
thunder growls, and I to mania.
I set out from refuge
into the storm,
high tides in a low sky.
A flash—
I could not catch it.

Hail pelts, impales houses and me
as I reach out, breathing,
dying in darkness.
I flash a grin
and a laugh, blown to silence
by a crack and a rumble,
roar of a leviathan cumulus,
and a river of light,
stream for the monster,
stays seen for a moment
and I delight in it.

Rain pedals downward,
slaps false tears on skin,
then softens, and soundless,
so I walk to the road.
The afterglow, silver,
the mist rising
like ghosts from the ground;
past lingers, swirls,
evaporates
under the silver shine
of moon on the pavement
and the trees glistening in darkness.
And all things are angelic,
in the phantasmal scene,
glazed in petrichor
and an otherworldly quiet
that follows, always,
a passing storm.

I almost cry
watching god
make herself known.
And listen for
a proverb of silence,
birth and death,
beginnings and endings,
the sky and I.

"He's brilliant."
Well, you are brilliant too.
"Only if you say so."

Subdued warm in my breast is
a long-forgotten embrace of my worth.
Unhindered by
suffocating imprints,
old behaviors.
I face a screen of the moment, shining clear
in high-definition of reality,
a new definition of what it means to live.
Outside the sinister assumption
that protection
keeps our Fear at bay,
when, actually,
the very, very same
will keep the hated fiend
in your soul,
at play.

You were to me as a pear on a shelf
In a sterile world, claimed friend to my health.
At first sight, yellow, spotted like the rest,
A little more so, (they say those are the best)
So I picked you out, wrapped in my plastic love,
I took you home; you were attractive enough.
I touched you, cold, weathered leathery skin,
From the several storms you stayed tethered in.
But I didn't mind the flaws you presented;
I held you, bit softly, your smooth skin consented.
You filled me with sugar, smelling sweet and yet biting,
Dripping, so wet in the half-hindered lighting.
Gritty and crisp like a World War II gunner,
Yet syrupy sweet like an indulgent summer.
As time welcomed shadows, I chewed to your core;
your succulent nature was less than before.
Silent in sorrow, I gazed at the truth:
Stringy and course, your manner uncouth.
Thus, as with most, you cannot sustain
Someone biting deep, digging into your brain,
For a bitter brown core is all that remained,
And your friendly façade was never the same.