A Perfect Storm

The wind finds the strings first.

It slips through them, curious, turning every loose note.

Lighting is my dim room light.

I strum a slow pattern, and the storm answers in the distance, not angry, just unwilling to be understood.

We are both trying to explain ourselves in languages we only half remember.

Each note small, with a lit window in the clouds. Some ghosts of conversations I should have had, for the faces I rehearse in memory, but never call.

The trees bow and shiver, not from fear, but from recognition. They know what it is to stand in one place, while the sky keeps changing its mind.

Again the guitar hums against my ribs, a second heartbeat, quieter, more honest.

The storm holds a version of me that chose differently,

No one will ever hear this song exactly this way again.

But the wind remembers, carrying the thin, trembling chords of sound over roofs and under doors, looking for someone who needs to know they are not the only one trying to stay calm.