Departed November

Lightning Bolt

A little lightning

Can change nothing

Or everything.

A little strobe in the clouded,

Bruise-green sky

Followed by a clap of

Foreboding fury...

That sort of lightning

Only sometimes changes

Everything.

So what kind of lightning

Always changes

Everything?

The kind on his forearm--

Etched blackness into

Fragile, porcelain skin.

Just the outline,

A little bit of everything.

A forever on his arm I

Might never know as well

as something which

Has always been a part of him,

Such as his hair:

Freshly washed,

After work,

Little puffs of illegal smoke.

Perhaps what scares me most

Is that a lightning bolt

With no meaning to him

Will be in his life longer

Than I ever will.