The Weather – A Poem

When she asked me how I was feeling,

there was concern in her voice.

I began to tell her,

listing the places my body has taken me,

the hills and valleys

that I have had to climb,

mountains that I have had to scale

just to get out of bed.

She stops me

and I imagine myself like the mountain climber,

the one from The Price Is Right that yodels

as he makes his way up a rockface,

stopped in place on a ledge about to fall to my doom.

“It’s not just you,”

she says.

“Everyone I’ve talked to is tired and foggy. I think it’s the weather.”

She gives me what I assume is a frown of commiseration.

I could tell her about how violent the waves

have been in my head,

that I’ve been trying to keep my head still

so that I could see through the water.

I want to tell her about the cavern in my chest.

I’m pretty sure a gremlin has taken up residence there,

content to grow within the dark of me,

its claws hooked into the rungs of my rib cage.

It’s on the edge of my lips to explain how I’ve been walking in the dessert,

knee deep in sand that has grown wet from a storm.

Overnight, the sand fills my bed and grows around me,

like a cocoon that I must slip out of every morning,

breaking free of its shell so that I can sit up.

I have to push my way through the sand so that I can leave it behind,

and yet, it still fills my pant cuffs and pockets.

I could tell her about all the times I have had to brave the marshlands,

The rods of grass are full of tricksters,

the fog hiding everything from me,

and nothing is what it seems.

I try to see through the grass so that I can

find my way to the path.

It will show me the way to safety,

I know this,

and yet the grease filled smoke distorts my mind,

shapes in front of me change and morph

until I have lost my way.

I don’t know where I am within myself most days

and have lost the pathway to safety.

I could tell her all of this,

but when I look at her eyes I can see

that even if I were to tell her any of that,

she would not understand.

Instead, I say:

“Of course, the weather.”

and I leave it

at that.