Where Poems Come to Die

it rained today.

There are thousands of poems
Comparing people
With rain
And yet none have accurately encompassed the essence of it all
The storm
In all it's powerful glory
Momentarily taking its place
As the centerpiece of the sky
And then the next
It's gone
As you feel the earth beneath you move
With the force of thunder
She was like the storm.
Bright eyes and loud laugh
Delicate footsteps as she walked
Towards you or away you'll never know
Sunrise dripped from her lips
And the earth thrived in the midnight sky
Of her irises
And for a moment
Everything you knew became a distant memory
As you watched her
Dress whipping around her legs
In a yellow hurricane of chiffon
Hair soaked and arms raised high
As if commanding the storm to grow
Faster and louder
And it obeyed
Of course it did
Unable to deny her the joy of its destruction
And when she laughed
The skies weeped and the heavens roared
For they knew
Her beauty was incomparable
When lightning struck the ground
She smiled
And Zeus himself could not
Have harnessed energy enough
To match the life in her soul
As she twirled in the rain
Screaming that the world was more beautiful like this
In its most painful glory
And so was she
For though her smile could end wars
Her tears could drown oceans
And her screams could quench fires
And Hell itself paused to watch her
As she tore herself apart
The lightning that tore the sky in half
Was pathetic in the wake of the mascara that streaked her face
As she clawed at her own skin
Shouting that she wasn't enough for you
And blooms of color in the sky
On a rainy Friday night
Were rendered dull and grey
Beside the red of her lips
As she twisted them into a coy smile
That mocked you from across the room
And you'd never felt so helpless
Or weak
Or so utterly alone
Because she was not like the storm
No
She was not like the rain
Or as bright as the lightning
Or as loud as the thunder
She was not bright lights and loud screams
Nor was she raindrops on tin roofs
And blurry reflections from the window of your car
No
She was not like the storm
She was more than the storm
Because storms clear up
And puddles dry
And eventually the sky grows quiet
And the world can sleep again
But she was the beginning and the end of everything
And ultimately
That was her biggest mistake of all. 

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