i began to lose myself very much like a thunderstorm
that wasn't in the forecast
that came unannounced
but in hindsight, all the people around it would say
"we were due one anyway"

i saw myself in the sudden downpour, in the grayness that
so quickly consumed the atmosphere

i saw myself in the headaches that came as the pressure dropped
in the ache of pre-emptively, and unconsciously adjusting to imminent change, even in the moments before it seems to show up

when the wind of change reaches us, it is how we brace ourselves before we even feel it, that knocks us down first

i saw myself in weary window watching. i saw myself in changes of plans. i saw myself in interrupted growth, in uprootedness, in the disheveled and crooked sprouts that i call attempts for stability.

i saw myself in the rush of people scrambling for shelter
trying to get out of the misery of having their clothes wet

mostly, i saw myself in the panic with which they scatter, in all directions
and i see myself, too, in the people who couldn't get out in time

nowadays, i resign myself as a passive recipient to the storm before it begins. i will likely get caught in it, and i accept that fate for myself now

when i found myself one morning gazing upon the city, noting
the lack of gray clouds, thinking i had found myself a respite in the
middle of the rainiest season i'd ever had

i would feel a sense of longing, for days when i could enjoy them for the fact that they are so beautiful, rather than the fact that they represent a brief culmination to the most recent torrent of storms.

when the leaves started to lose their colour
this year
i felt a sense of softness for them. because they seem to hang on so much better through so many kinds of weather. and they turn all the same.

perhaps i believed my resistance and my surrendering could never go hand in hand. but i see myself when i see change now

and i am turning all the same.