The Storm

The storm came.
The day grew darker
But the leaves
Had a strange glow of
A looming end.
Rain pattered,
And pattered,
Like distant memories
Trying to break in
The warm homes
That protected us.
The wind howled,
Shaking the trees,
That swayed begrudgingly
And painfully
Against the peace
They had grown accustomed to.

I watched
As the lightening flashed and
Turned everything
Into grey and white
As if to bare open
The skeletons of a world
We'd falsely clothed
In our minds with flesh.
Thunder followed
And shook souls
Insulated with the dust of time.
It rolled and rolled,
As my insides churned
With its beckoning.
The storm spoke to me,
and lulled me into the darkness,
As the rainbow
faded, with the glow of the leaves.
Only the skeletons
I had denied myself to see
Remained.
Even the new warm sheets inside
Were not spared
Of the glare
Of truth and past,
That once again
The storm had come to purge.
Once again,
We all had to come to terms
With the fear of what we truly are.

I sit in the comfort
Of a home
That doesn't burn in the flames
Of the lightening,
That doesn't crumble
In the acid of the rain,
That doesn't wet my skin
To the point of hot fever
Near death.
And yet
The storm clutches my heart
With every blow
Of thunder-
As it spares no one-
Not the poor
The indifferent
The brave
Or the lovers.
It threatens us all,
This inevitable,
Cleansing, violent
Force of nature.
Making us cling
To that we cannot let go-
And making us choose
That which we must.