Stormfront Mindset

Rain pelted the glass in tiny rivulets that reminded her

of nights past when she would quiver under a thunderstorm,

the drummed beats colliding with her nest of fears.

There were also flashes to moments when cars skidded

and nearly crashed against embankments, litanies

of horns meshing with the screech of bending metal.

But she tried to tell herself those days were over—

when catastrophe was a synonym with life—

but each rainy day she recalled and sank back,

retreating into a space best left gone away.

On sunny days, no threat of clouds crashing together,

she allowed herself to be comforted by the warmth—

which made it so much easier to forget the storms.

Her often reminder came when she saw the picture frame,

her dad's face and hers side-by-side with matching grins,

and she calculated the days since she had heard his voice.

By now, the number felt infinite, stretching and consuming—

her own age creeping towards the one her dad had left on.

Soon, she told herself, she would not cry on rainy days

or linger on the sight of lightning splicing the sky;

soon, storms might just be familiar incidents

that didn't lead to musings of life and death

or the silencing of one life that had mattered most.

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