I once thought your eyes like the ocean. I was wrong. They are lightning.
Your desert storm rolls toward me. The jagged blue line extends, cloud to earth. I stand where positive and negative will collide.
I'd touched lightning before. Maybe this time it'll take me, transform me, make me more like itself than what I am.
This time I'll be brought to life. It'll be different, I say, though I've seen what lightning can do. I'm different now than I was. This is a new bolt, not like the one before.
Electricity needs a point of contact. It finds the shortest route to express itself. I will make its journey easier. I stretch out my hand.
Positive and negative collide too fast to recognize the violence flowing through my body, resetting the atmosphere's imbalanced charge.
Blue turns to white.
Burning, I am new.
Not what I was before. For a moment, I am lightning.
Blinded, I smell roasting meat and singed hair. I feel my skin bubble and burst. Exposed muscle and blood sizzle.
Emergency. Shutdown. Restart.
I wake to a body on fire. A scorched-black hole in the ground and my scorched-black body are the only outward signs I had ever felt your touch.
I look up. Blurred flashes fade. I'm alone, burning. I try to reach out again, but lying on the ground is no way to attract lightning. Before I can stand, the storm carries you away.
How could I have mistaken lightning for the ocean?
YOU ARE READING
Before; After
PoetryI'm posting this looking for some feedback. Any constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated. Writing has always provided me with solace, by helping me to sort through and frame my emotional experience. During one of the more difficult times...
