and it is the worst,
y'know,
that descent into silence,
slow and all at once, they say,
that sudden shaking sadness.

it springs outta nowhere,
see, that pounce, that shadow consuming,
and see,
suddenly you’re hollow.
suddenly you’re gone,
or you wanna be gone—
like my heart’s tryin’ to pound
only my chest’s on lockdown
and no words’ll come out my mouth;
see now,
it just seems
there ain’t nothing i can do.

nah, see, i’m sorry, just—
some days,
i am consumed.

and— my god!
days like this,
i wanna be the wind,
that howl,
that whistle through the trees,
that storm comin’.

girl, days like this one:
i wanna be the way the roofs rattle.
all that cold air in my face.
all young tornado.

a gale, a gust gone wild,
a current, an easy flight.

a quiet kind o’ siege,
see.
watch this, darlin’.
the storm.
it’s comin’.

watch.

boy, but does she shine like a light,
a star, the sun and moon combined.

like the wind in your face, like a breeze blanketing,
like the steady dream you work for, like the long-awaited rest;
see, she is the calm in the sky, the ocean, your heart –
she is the quiet in the forest, the softness of each movement.

she is a soft sprout, the grass beneath your feet
and the tree who arches her branches above you.
she is the good soil and all the things in bloom,
the water running clean and cold and sweet;
she, who knows nothing but to give, and give, and give –
a beauty that runs good and goes deep.

(and people, they so easily forget
how she is as well the thunder, the lightning,
the storm meeting the shores,
a wolf howl at her core.
don’t be fooled.
know
how she is both hellfire
and candlelight.)

what if
we are not the thunder.
what if
the ocean carries only water
and the wonder is something that was never there;
just hope turned desperation.

what if the soil is just dirt,
what if there is no stardust within us.
what if there is only us;
if we are all we have.

if our fates are not set in stone after all;
just us cradling bad decisions in shaky hands.
if we are left alone,
and there is no savior but ourselves.

what if purpose is a long-lost myth,
if we cannot make it on our own,
if we find this life gone in a blink, a beat.
what then. what then.

if we are left unfound.

'i still love you,' i whisper,
an echo that does not echo back in the silence;
(it does not need to)

i still love you,
the most honest words to pass my lips,
and yet it is easy –
to admit this love for you even now,
not so much a confession as a simple confirmation:

i still love you; i haven’t stopped; i do not intend to.

i turn the sound of the shattering into a punchline
and the laughter almost burns the room down.
and it feels almost like a promise.
(of what, i do not want to know.
i do not want to say.)

and the truth of it is
sometimes it truly is just a joke, a skin-deep wound, no one's loss;
other times
(most times)
the hurt scrapes against my bones,
and the promise echoes just as the laughter ends,
(sputters into a silence more deafening than the uproar)
as they leave the room,
as i am left alone.

i ride through the breakdown and become too lost to rebuild,

much less to rebuild alone.

she is the bright of sun in the last light of day,
turns the sky blood-red in her struggle –
does not sink until the end of the fray.

and yet, this light goes untamed still, somehow, someway,
alive even in the night;

for after all,
hers too is that borrowed gleam of moonrise.