Weathered by Love

She came into my life dressed like a gentle breeze.

You know, the kind you feel at the arrival of fall; 

a cool warning of colder days to come. 

She plunged deep into my heart and settled there comfortably. 

My gut tried to warn me, but I just didn’t listen. 

Red flags were buried under the waves of excuses I made for her behavior.

“Love is blind,” they say, and I drowned in oblivion.

She came into my life dressed like a gentle breeze.

It didn’t take long for her to mature into a  hurricane, 

leveling  me to the ground.

The contents of my heart and mind left scattered about in random places. 

There is no order to me anymore. 

Rain falls from my face as the absence of the sound of her voice rings violently in my head.

After she left, I danced along the edge of insanity,

with dark waters inviting me to wade in my own madness. 

I politely declined after a brief visit with grief and sadness, 

although the temptation remains,

Because she came into my life, dressed like a gentle breeze, 

but then she leveled me to the ground.

t.a.yearwood