Most people look like they wouldn’t survive a storm.
They are flimsy,
Full of half-truths and half-meanings,
Half-substance that will surely wash away in a good downpour.

I am always spilling raindrops,
Thus I am dangerous to the masses.

It was snowing the night I felt myself
Slipping
And looking at you truly for the first time—
Not a blizzard,
Just a gentle dusting,
Flakes drifting lazily in the excitable wind—
And I assumed that you,
Like everyone else,
Were just dazzled by dreamlike sparkle,
But would flee when the real storm came.
Your presence was a comfort,
So for weeks I played weatherman,
Tried to hold back inclement weather
Lest I wake to find you gone.

But Nature is inevitable,
So I found hurricanes for days.

I’d been painting
Love
On my lips since pre-school,
But you were the first to press it there
And make it stick.
You were the first to see the storm gathering
And stay until the clouds cleared,
Though my ears were mad with thunder
And my limbs were sparking lightning
And all my world was dark and cloud and sheets of pouring rain.

Slick with raindrops,
You pushed the bangs out of my eyes
And said that all was well.