Burning Clouds

You wouldn't understand, she said.

You will never understand, she said.

If pain was an indicator of understanding,

Let her be as blissful as the sun,

always blanketed in a sea of comfort.

Encapsulated by her optimism, ecstatic beyond sanity,

but broken by what life authentically is.

I’d rather be a gray, dull rain cloud,

peering from the corner of the sky, like an orphan

engulfed by welcoming stars

that never notice the shadow behind.

To be shunned by her and all she knows

to light a match within, to light a bonfire,

to supernova without acknowledgment.

I rain down droplets of truth

but she curses my tears as

I collapse to the ground.

I’d rather be a lonely rain cloud

than to be clouded by her needs.

I board up the windows before hellfire can enter.

Where the sun paints my heart with pastel sympathy,

by the warmth I dissolve in one, two, three.

I’d rather flood the world sober, transparently

than be a sun that scorches its worshipers.

If I could be my own friend, and that is all she sees me as,

I’d rather be a plain-Jane rain cloud.