Caroline Lewis
I have long ago learned to fear
that when everything is sunny,
and I feel an unnatural calm,
a storm is brewing somewhere in the center,
so far away and so enormous
that I will not see it until it is upon me.
I have learned to walk in the rain for hours,
until the downpour forces me to flee
into the nearest house.
I have long ago learned
that the only safe house is mine.
That the only place that I truly know in those times is my mind.
That even when it is dark, I know the way around,
and I can feel the furniture,
and when the wind blows in,
at least the cracks in the walls are familiar.
But you—you contradict what I have learned,
when I thought I could not have
the beauty of the sea without the storm,
the fire of the sunset without the dark soon following.
You are like a warm day with sun and sky and breeze,
and true peace, for I know you will not
bring a storm, I know that we will not
create a tempest.
I know you are the fine line that I have been searching for,
wondering about, for years,
hope versus history.
I fear no storm brewing on the horizon,
and when I think of the unexpected squalls that will arise one day,
I know that we together
can walk, nay, dance through the rain.
And I know because you, everything with you, feels like a house I know well—
a home.
A house I have never set foot in,
yet when the lights are out,
I know my way in the dark,
and when the wind blows in, the cracks don’t matter—
you are here.