What does it mean,
To feel alive?
To be yourself?
To love? To cry?

I always searched
For a feeling or thing
That brought out my joy,
Made me laugh, made me think.

I think I've finally
Seen the light:
Fall in love with each moment,
Fall in love with your life.

I wanted to model my life after a rainstorm:

To embody the excitement and freshness and screaming vitality
of a torrential rain on a hot summer day
To show off my clouds and shout out with thunder
My worries and sorrows, my failures and fears.
To laugh and cry and run and shriek
With windstorms and hailstorms and post-summer sleet.

But most of all,
I wanted to flash through people's lives like lightning
So, so bright and unexpected and beautiful and alive
That they held their breath and scanned the skies
For just one more crackle of energy and excitement
That makes them question their accepted lives.

If nothing else, I'll be petrichor
The soft, sweet reminder of new life to come.
That puts a smile on people's faces
As they, for once, stop, and breathe,
And remember that
They, too,
Are
Alive.

I can't see the future
I can't change the past

For once,
I pause
and breathe
and laugh

Because in this moment
I am
So, so
Alive

Hiding from a rainstorm
is supposed to be tranquil :
                the patter of rain...
                the rumble of harmless thunder...
                watching the storm, but never feeling it...
Just raindrops on windows, with you safe inside.

But what if that thunder is the breaking of a friend's heart?
The lightning, the slashing of her dreams?
Her storm is raging within a snow globe…
From the outside, beautiful and perfect...
Unless you know the truth.

Thank God for that glassy protection, right?
Except...
             For all your good intentions...
             And best efforts...
             And wishful thinking...
All you can do is stay by her side
until her world settles.

What if that storm was a torrent of bullets,
Tearing her to pieces?
You can only watch,
Untouchable behind bulletproof glass...

I mean, at least you're safe, right?
… But doesn't it hurt you to witness it
Without being able to intervene?

What if that rain is made of salty tears?
Heartaches and losses and sorrow...
You can try...
                 and be there for her...
                 and phone and listen...
                 and offer every ounce of your comfort...
But no matter what you do...
God still controls the weather.

I mean, at least it isn't your own suffering.
… But that's just it, isn't it?
There's no doorway through a wall of glass.

See,
The very best part of chrysalism
Is that you're hiding on the inside
Within your own peaceful world.

The worst?
You can't swap places.

.               Having                                         L
         A glass heart                               A                         Y
     Is very good in theory:            E                                   O
  Pretty from the outside,       H                                          U
Filled up with hope the inside. 
But didn't they warn you?                                                    E
 That glass is hard and cold?                                               R
    That lonely dreams will fade?                                      O
        That "protecting yourself"                                     F
            Sometimes is the thing                                  E
               That hurts you most ?                             B
                   So before you build
                        Your heart of ice                     K
                             Never forget:                  A
                                 To be loved,            E
                                     You might       R
                                           Need     B
                                               To