life doesn’t cease for every grey cloud.
along the road by the marina,
the silhouette of a raccoon forages
against the vigilant eye of a street lamp;
he knows crayfish don’t wait
for the skies to clear.

no, i won’t stop for the rain,
not when thirsty muscles can only be quenched
by the nectar of exertion,
not when these electric bones can strike the asphalt,
proudly rivaling the patter of puny droplets,
every pounding footfall
louder than thunder.

i don’t stop for the rain.
no, i never stop for the rain.
because the rain sure as hell
never stops for me.

surely anything with ears
is now hiding from me,
safe in the golden latticework
of crackling caves
and crevices.

we are a loud and boisterous species;
no wonder earth is so timid to respond
and so often deaf to our pleas.

along that same river
was a tree. it spoke to me,
saying, “there once was a tire
where now there is only rope,”

as it has said endlessly since
it lost its blessed tire
to the sea.

i miss decompression, hovering those fifteen feet
below the surface of the ocean and waiting
for the nitrogen to leave my skin.

…i wake up from dreams these days
like someone coming up too fast.
my head goes through something
like the bends.
reality boils underneath my skin
like bubbles of nitrogren.

i have to take those fifteen minutes each morning,
lying quietly underneath the sheets,

becoming accustomed once again
to brain and flesh and heartbeat,

convincing myself, this is better
than life underwater.

I breath the air from ground to ceiling in a deep, deep sigh,
and lie there for a good fifteen minutes.

just decompressing.

in response to illustration friday.