It began the moment I left.
The clouds, black and burgeoned with dark water,
caught me, contained me.
Drums in the sky pounded the only message
my body needed to know.
For all their thunder, my bones shook.
For all their streaming rivers
falling down my fractured panes,
I should have turned back.
Brief, I expected them,
and easily swatted aside.
But the sky told no mistruth,
and the serpentine road, swallowed by the rain,
scrawled into my tired eyes
the lie of leaving.
A wager, I made with the advancing night.
‘You’ll break with the sun when I return.’
‘And go black again with every retreat.’
And impatient, I threatened.
And railed.
And made war against everything.
Even knowing the deed was mine.
But the rain only laughed.
And the night shrugged at the hidden moon.
Daring that I should do it again.
That I should return, and stride the storm
a thousand times over.
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