It was fitting
That it rained every day that summer
The clouds hung low
And pressed precipitation into the pavement
The sun was shining and the streets were glistening
The atmosphere came down to our level
As though to say
You are grounded
The grass was green
As though to say
You are alive
And the wind was calm
As though to say
You are still
Mother Nature seemed to be taking maternity leave
To nurture neglected nights
Passed absent of distraction
To water wandering willows
Weeping empty wisdom
The sky cried for us
When we were too busy to pretend to be anything
But grown
Sunken clouds dirtied the horizon
So we could forget that we were not clean
Cumulonimbus occluded the sky
So we did not have to worry about flying away
Held tight our skin secured secrets
Soothed violent visions
Made our minds a bit more watered down.
That summer something changed
In the sharpness of the morning
The sun was no longer a surprise
Sleep became something I did at night
My conversations with you
Became something saved for the last sip
Of a handle of ***
And your name was replaced
With him, you, the boy
You were a dream
I woke up from,
I had been asleep
Long enough.
That summer it was spring
It was the renaissance
Torture was no longer the norm
So I learned to stop loving you
With my hands
Holding fire love
With paper palms
Or maybe I was the fire
And we were paper mache
I still don’t know
If I was the consumer or the consumed
But on the back of a broken trail
I learned to be neither
Do no harm
And take no ****
Be as strong as an oak
Move your home from volcano
To valley
And vacate the wrath of want
That summer
I learned to reconcile
A child’s heart
With adult problems
I learned to raise my character
With a self-esteem that said something
With a throat that echoed more
Than him, you, the boy
That summer something changed
And finally it was me.