A Lightning Strike

you know before she gets to you
that she is coming
fury winding itself up, her breath
the wind
pulling and pushing

she pounds her fists into your back
leaving cracks
paper-thin and skin-deep
along your spine
and you know you should turn and run
away from this storm
but instead
you pull closer into her center

you think
this is it
the hurricane, the flood
that will trap you

in the mud building castles
up around your knees
this is the moment you
don't want to live

you pull your shoulders up
hold steady
plant yourself still deeper in
and wait for the scream
that doesn't come with her

the light is blinding but
blinks out faster than it struck
and when all is said and done
you are nothing more
than air

--------------------

I haven't written creatively in such a long time, I fear I'm a little rusty. But the other day I was driving home from work and felt compelled to draw a metaphor that I'll leave to your interpretation.  I often think I'm a much better narrative / creative nonfiction writer than anything else, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to experiment. At the very least, writing poetry and flash fiction (before it WAS flash fiction) are the strongest roots of my creativity.

Do you know how I learned I was a writer? Besides all the used-up notebooks and worn-down pencils, I mean.  It was all the times that I was inspired by something mundane in such a way as to become almost completely distracted by it. As I get older, these moments are much more infrequent, but I still have them occasionally.

What I enjoy the most about writing is both the urgency and the patience in it. What I mean to say is that when inspiration strikes, it builds in my brain as language, words that kind of sway almost so that I can see them in front of me. There is this need to write them down but I know whatever is coming won't be right until I leave them be for awhile. It often starts slowly, a few lines that usually mean the start of something new; within days, the few lines build into deeper concepts that eventually take on a life of their own. By that time, I've thought so often about these words that I've memorized them in a particular order almost unconsciously created. Then, and only then, does writing come easy.

It's an amazing process.