Hurricane Love

Storms are only beautiful at a distance.

How do I make love when

there are so many shores on my body

I don't want anyone laying down on?

That my silence has a voice and

it says, "Stop before you get hurt."

That thunder would roll

across my hands,

shaking them until I feared the lightning in myself.

It was the lightning in myself that shocked me most.

The rain that pounded against the backs of my eyes.

You said don't cry,

but hail the size of human hearts are never going to stop hurting.

Never going to stop the storm that

has been going on for so long

I forgot when it started;

and before it started I forgot how it felt,

because I forgot

how it felt to be loved.

Love was like a season I wasn't ready for.

The weather man said it was going to be sunny clear skies,

and I got clouds.

Innocent white turned ashen grey and I realized

they only ever like my brightness

until they see the darkness in the corners of my body.

They don't like the music my demons

screech in their evening sacrifices to the rain.

Which by the way is the most silent storm you could ever hear.

You wouldn't even know it was there

if you didn't sometimes get wet;

and sorry I'm not perfect,

but asking me to change the weather is like 

throwing boiling water on a burn victim.

Like trying to make love when you haven't

learned the difference between a one night stand and "I love you."

Trust me I have learned now,

and I like sex.

My body however love's sex

because it loves feeling connected but

doesn't understand that feeling connected isn't love

when all you're doing is throwing all your pieces in a bucket

and saying they're together now.

That's not how love works.

I like sex,

but at the same time

I hate the way I have to convince my body

that it wasn't that it wasn't good enough.

That all storms are beautiful at a distance,

but everyone is afraid of them getting to close

and that it's not my bodies fault.

It's not my fault you only learned enough about the hurricane to

give it a name but never stayed around long enough

to understand why a storm always starts 

in the middle of no where.

In the middle of a sea where the only sound

are the waves that scares people that never learned to swim.

I know how to swim now,

but it was like learning how to play guitar without strings.

How to sing music while someone choked me out,

and don't think I haven't been choked out

while someone 'made love' to me;

because the entire time I was drowning on her lips

sea nymphs were moaning lullabies like I have never heard;

and I know I did a fantastic job 

because they left scars I would carry around for days on my back.

Soft enough to not bother me after a while,

but just deep enough to remind me that they were scars

and did I not have enough of those already?

I am being taught that only fools watch storms in the rain,

that it isn't love without scars,

and making love is for fairy tales and we're all just looking 

for the one night stand that doesn't feel like it ended when they left.

You sit there and say I am a hopeless romantic.

That I am hopeless because hope isn't found in romance,

it's found in another persons scars;

and though that may be lovely to say

we are being taught to run from storms.

I was told silence was deadly,

so that must mean people are terrified of me

because I don't make small talk about the weather;

and in this culture 

there's nothing else to talk about,

because Siri said it best,

"I know everything."

My love is silent.

The only thing you'll ever hear is the drizzle,

because you can't make love

and be beautiful at the same time.

Reviews

[Zachary E. Tenney]

Excellent poem, very poignant and full of interesting and provocative imagery. Seriously great work, I'm glad I stumbled upon you while I was searching the site because I've truly enjoyed both poems I've read by you so far, and I'll definitely be reading more.

[Andrew Rayne]

Thank you kindly. I appreciate it. :)