VIEW FROM OUR BEDROOM WINDOW

You are sleeping in the room alone now

You are restless in the night

When the lightning from the storm strikes, you shine

For a second in the light, I wait

For a moment when the weather breaks

I can feel you in the mattress shake

I can see the way an old pain haunts you

Mourning falling into frame

You stayed down

I faced my failure, in a way I escaped it

In the crumble before a breakdown takes

Like a rapture in the night, you fight hard

I faced my own pain, in a way I embraced it

In the bedroom with the door locked tight

Like a coward when the flash burns bright, I'll hide

Your hands burnt on the torch’s flame

Fighting the path away

Brighter than lightning and burning, striking the ground

We spent summers awake

We shake at shadows' shapes

The wind, it rattles our chains

We're always turning around

You were standing in the doorway

You were staring at the flames

How the fire from the house next door mixed

With the colors from the cop cars I saw

Neighbors gathered in the alleyway

In the summer, in the heat, I wait

For a wind that I can chase your pain out

Gather water for the flames, I wait

Nights we both shook

Any noise that got in our room

Rattled on the floor like shells scattering or like hail falling on the hood of our car

Do you remember that drive south?

Coast-bound, just us two

Savannah west in the mirror and winter in rear-view, burning

How the storm fell so harshly we felt swallowed

And traffic stopped before and behind us

Hard rain in sheets gray and unbroken

Hazards flashed dimly in all directions like small satellites or like lighthouse beacons

We turned the radio off

I gripped the wheel tight when the storm burst and clouds split suddenly open to the sky

All the colors that once had us dumbstruck with love and terror and both

As if before us stood temples ancient and terrifying

The light refracting truth to see death and life in all things

Your hands burnt on the torch’s flame

I was the last to change

Strike me like a lightning bolt, burning me down

Your hands burnt on the torch's flame

I was the last to change

Strike me like a lightning bolt, burning me down

The wind rattles our chains

We shake our fists at the pain

We shake at shadows' shapes

We cup our hands in the storm

And watch our houses burning

We catch the rain to fight it