Storms, Fairy Tales and Moorings.

We craved a storm so extreme our insides would finally find relative peace. In watching naked destruction fall upon our road, our trees, our power-lines, we hoped we might watch something succumb to the same fate that had been ravaging our hearts (rubbed raw by our ribs with each overpowered beat), our lungs (worn down by whispers and wails) and our brains (overheated and undernourished). Instead we found scattered twigs and torn leaves and took refuge in TV marathons and video games.

In another form, in another situation, I'm sure I have felt the same heaviness, the same scorched chest, the same tendency toward tears and small corners. I have been a girl pouring over lyrics, fairy tales, and old movies, and I recognize my senses now filled with the same uncertainty that was once scrawled on crumpled paper and whispered into starry skies. But it is different to feel this way with you. It is different to feel both so utterly afloat and so completely anchored.

You are the only one who sees what I'm feeling, through the muddy water I hide beneath, and makes me feel it. Though sometimes to stop drowning and start breathing feels like simply drowning in a new way, you are the only one whose arms can make the mess in my head subside for a moment. I have never known laughter like ours. I have known no hands, no arms, no lips, that make me feel as safe. Wild, alive, and safe.

Sidewalks in the Rain

There’s something quietly beautiful about dirty sidewalks in the rain, mud and cigarette butts floating atop the dips and cracks, flitting like disoriented houseflies, the gray a fitting reflection of the darkened skies. Noise settles into a numbing whir for the moment: car tires rolling at slower paces, more people braving the streets alone, or maybe just more obviously alone, as they angle their faces down, dancing, as it were, from one square to the next to keep their feet dry inside their silk socks.

The rain finds the open space between the cotton of their shirts and the warmth of their skin, and the last droplets come down with an uncomfortable shock at first, eventually adjusting to something almost sensual, trickling down spines between tensing muscles as the air around them dries and quiets.

Necks start to unfurl, eyes admiring the passing clouds that, in their rush to keep up with the wind, expose bits of uncovered sky. The trees begin to lose their weight, and their branches get thrown, leaves like static on a television screen, synchronized motion in too many directions to seem cohesive.

The calm of the storm seems more present than the calm after, as people start appearing in more doorways, breaking free from their moments of reverie and introspection, refocusing their thoughts to routine, more aware of the dirt beneath their feet, unaware that they, too, are quietly beautiful.