I am the wind.

 

When you met me, I was a gentle evening breeze. Warm, romantic, well received. A respite from the summer’s heat. I was a playful, autumn flurry. Rustling leaves. Swirling through woodlands in twirling curls, recreating ocean swells. 

 

Enjoying the dance, I let myself float. Be free. 

 

Uninhibited, I let out a gust, which startled the truth hiding behind your mask. I watched as it flew up, out into the light. It rose to attack. A boa. Grabbed at my throat, persistently. Squeezing my air pipes, dragging me. 

 

But, you had forgotten

 

I am the wind.

 

and I changed direction.

 

Reality awakened a power in me. A world-destroying, fear-inducing, death-defying force. A storm. Justified anger welled. Tall, towering, strong. An ever-growing funnel of fury. I tugged at mountain tops, uprooted trees, lifted oceans to dump on dry land. I shook foundations, ripped buildings apart. Brick by brick. I knocked rocks together, creating sparks that grew into flames and rode at my side. They licked the bracken, roared through forests, bubbled paint on abandoned cars. Skipped into engines to light touch papers. Explosions. Blistering heat. White, blue, green. Homes destroyed, possessions gone. Nothing but ash.

 

A grave. Six feet under. Buried.

 

No air. The oxygen to fuel fire, snuffed. No movement, no wind. The weight of the earth upon my chest. I lie motionless. Paralysed. 

 

Betrayed. Unfixable. 

 

I am still, yet my mind; a whirlwind. Pleading. Begging. Willing for a green shoot, a seedling. Birthed from my chest, to push its head out and up. Up through the mud to reach the sun. Start something new.