The Storm
I'm sitting
On my back porch
And I'm watching the rain fall
Watching it paint my cluttered yard a few shades darker
I hear the hail before I see it
Hear it hit the metal roof I am beneath
I watch it fall on the ground in front of me
Like cold little crystals
Frozen rocks
And I know if I stay on the porch I'm safe from the potential destruction of these little…
Pebbles.
They remind me first of words,
The idea of words as weapons.
I can casually tell my best friend "ha omg just go kill yourself" and let it be a joke.
A casual sort of
Inside
Joke.
I can stick my hand out and catch a piece of ice
And it won't hurt.
It'll melt in my hand
And I'll smile.
I can hear a bully tell a stranger to end their meaningless life already!
And it won't harm me.
I can let them hit their target dead on
Bullseye
And I can watch those hateful pebbles drop
From the softer clouds they were born from
And shatter a car windshield
Or dent the roof I sit under
But as long as I hide
As long as I let the roof take the punch
I'll be safe
I'll be fine
But one day maybe it'll be too much
My roof will collapse and
I will have NO place to run
And then
Hurt by the debris of my poor broken roof
The guilt I now hold
The fear that I'll be next
The anger that it didn't stand up for itself and hold itself together
I will be twice as fragile when the bully tells me...
Go drink bleach.
No one wants you here.
You're disgusting.
Why
Are
You
Wasting
Air.
Or if I step from underneath the roof
And let the piercing bullets of the grey sky
Slam down on every inch
Of my body
It will still hurt.
Like words.
Because when you're told to end your life enough
When you're told you're worthless over and over again
When the sticks and stones to your will to live
To your conscience
To your heart
Continue to come
They pierce you inside and out
And by the time you learn to build your own shield
There's too much damage to scrap together the materials for any armor!
And with the metal roof over the back porch I will crumble.
One way or another.
Unless the storm ends first.