Dark clouds roll on the horizon
His lies are written in ink on her skin and she’s swimming in a river
The sky is an endless expanse of gloom
His presence is gum stuck in her hair and she’s covering her whole head in peanut butter
It’s a challenge with you, trying to keep my head up in your downpour
His touch is a ***** t-shirt she’s been wearing and she’s finally taking it off
You flicker my lights so as to say “look at me” and I do
Memories of him are a watercolor painting that she left out in the rain Until the colors have all blended together and washed away
I hear you, storm. I see you. I’m not afraid of you.
He was the rain and she was finally learning how to dance in it

I was born Mother Nature’s daughter
From the moment my tiny feet first touched blades of grass
Her rivers baptized me into a world bigger than I knew
I grew up like one of her trees
Limbs searching for sun and roots digging into dirt
and in return she showed me the wonders of nature
The hidden beauty of a sunrise
The bittersweetness of a rainstorm
The enigma of a butterfly
She filled me with light when my world was dark
Showed me that silence isn’t scary when filled with bird chirps
Her sweet rays felt like slipping into a warm bath as she embraced me
Kissing me with constellations of freckles
When I was younger I picked flowers from the ground
But she would never chastise me
simply growing more and patiently waiting
until I was old enough to understand
why the severed flowers always wilted so quickly
I see people now
who have lived through enough of her seasons
to understand what they’re doing
Producing their clouds of their own
smothering her stars with smoke
Covering her ground with wrappers
Cutting down trees for shopping centers
All of mother nature’s work
Swept away like one of her hurricanes

My mother is dying, and I have no idea how to help her.

Life is balanced in every way
Each aspect makes sense and aligns,
Yet some anomalies slip into life,
Manifesting themselves into mine

Like how my emotions can become a roaring blaze,
Every thought becoming tinder for the fire
Yet some days my mind is a perpetual flatline
And all I can feel is tired

Or how I'm told I'm the happiest person alive
and when I'm drunk on life’s high that’s true
But in solitude I'm no stranger to with crying
The happiness hangover is nothing new

I’ll obsess about when the future arrives,
anxiously preparing for his visit to me
that when he asks to look at my memory books
there will be nothing for him to see

Time’s sands seem abundant in my hands
Leaving with more than i know what to do with
Somehow all the same its grains are disappearing
Cascading out from between my fingertips

The most important paradox though,
Is the one that I will always grip tight,
Even when the world is crashing down
Everything will be alright

Last night I felt like one of the stars
Shining bright against brilliant night
My dreams were finally taking flight

I had been born in darkness
A place unknown, daunting to roam,
Yet, here now, I glowed

I looked at the woman in the moon
Her smile gleamed and it almost seemed
like this was where I was meant to be

The space inside me now housed a galaxy

Tell me, butterfly,
Where did you begin?
Do you remember your roots before you blossomed?

Tell me, butterfly,
When did you decide?
How did you know that it was time?

Tell me, butterfly,
Did you know what you’d become?
That you would make pinpricks of trees that once dwarved you?

And if you didn’t, butterfly,
Then how were you brave?
As you shed skin for wings, comfort for change?

Tell, me, butterfly,
How did it feel to break free?
To see familiar sunlight illuminate your foreign figure?

Tell me, butterfly,
How long did it take to soar?
To flutter your wings like pages in a book?

Tell me, butterfly,
isn’t it daunting?
To transcend? Make reality bend?
To live a life where your beginning means an end?

Tell me, butterfly,
When will I metamorphosize?

I had overstayed my welcome in my bed
the security I once found beneath the sheets was now stifling
my limbs were asleep though my brain hadn’t slept a wink
too paralyzed by my thoughts to truly rest

I sat up and opened my eyes
but I may as well have kept them closed
for my room was cloaked in the darkness similar to that of midnight
though the passage of time had well evaded my mind

days spent in shadows had weakened my soul
so much so that I felt I had become one,
a distorted darkness of who I once was
denied the sweet savior of sunlight

I needed the sun to take my head in her hands
and lead me to a life of salvation
with her rays softly soaking my skin
until Ii could learn to bask in them again

yet when I threw back my curtains
ready to face the real world once more
I was met with the absence of a blue sky
and the sun was merely a sliver

watercolors were streaked across the horizon
the hues of Mother Nature’s masterpiece before me
the sunset was breathtaking
and all the same it was heartbreaking

for after it followed the night
filled with a darkness that was neither a stranger nor a friend
and though I believed in no higher powers
this felt like a sign

and so I began to close my curtains
so that I may return to my bed
with vain hopes that the next time I may arise
the sunlight will have arrived

that’s when I saw the sliver of sun begin to grow
and the watercolors bled together
as clear blue water washed them away
and it dawned upon me like the dawn before me:

I convinced myself that I was seeing a sunset, when it was truly a sunrise