I remember laying on the cold earth as a child,
watching a sky heavy with secrets,
when the first snow flurry brushed my cheek
a hush so soft I could have drifted away,
wrapped warm in my jacket,
the world outside fading
until only comfort remained.

At my grandparents’ house,
sunlight spilled across the kitchen floor in the morning,
and my grandmother’s sandwiches arrived like small miracles,
each bite a kind of promise
that the world was gentle here.
Every hug with them was an anchor,
every moment of excitement a burst of belonging
my heart at ease, my nervous system quietly humming
in the certainty of love.

But it was France,
in a tucked-away little room on the first floor of a strange house,
where I discovered what peace could feel like
for my body and soul.
There, the bed waited beneath white curtains,
the windows open to a gentle wind
that made the curtains dance,
soft as dreams.
I lay down, weightless,
a soft blanket pulled to my chin,
and drifted into the kind of nap
where anything felt possible
the world stilled, my mind a blank canvas,
filled only by the magic of being safe.

Now I understand
Peace is more than memory,
it’s the calm that fills my chest when the world is gentle,
the ease that settles in my bones,
the safety that softens every breath.
It’s a nervous system at rest,
a body unburdened,
a quiet mind that finally trusts where it is.

Wherever I find this stillness
in winter’s hush,
in sunlit kitchens,
in the sway of white curtains,
I know I am home.
Peace lives inside me now,
teaching me that calm and safety are not places,
but a way my whole self can feel
when I let the world be soft
and trust that I am safe.

Y lo sé,
mi amor,
que aún
no te vas.
Pero si llega
mi vieja
mala suerte,
si el destino
me mira
de reojo,
por favor,
no me digas
adiós.

Si no, lléname
la nevera
de besos
y abrazos
que no se
enfrían,
por si me muero
de hambre
y no de pena,
por si me faltan
tus labios
en las madrugadas.

Esconde piezas
de ti debajo
de las almohadas,
entre sábanas
y bolsillos,
para hallarte
en los días
donde el sol
olvide mi nombre.

Lo sé,
mi amor,
no es tiempo
de marcharse.
Pero si el reloj
tropieza
con mi sombra,
si el adiós
se asoma
sin permiso,
por favor,
no me lo digas.
Solo quédate
un poco
en cada rincón
donde te soñé.

Old man stands alone,
shirt undone,
hair silver and lifting,
the sky begins to split.

The storm enters
not with cruelty,
but with memory,
that deep breath before
the world unbuttons itself.

Thunder cracks like bones once young.
The rain walks sideways,
then vertical,
then all directions.
He does not move.

Was the storm that raised him,
not his father,
not a stiff lipped god behind a pulpit,
but this:
a violent choir of wind and water
tearing through the trees like language
he always understood
but never spoke.

Remembering it in his legs,
how the wind,
long ago,
swept him off roofs,
out of dry judgement,
into open roads and beds and truths.
How lightning never hit him,
but always pointed
and directed.

He once chased it,
barefoot,
drunk on youth and refusal,
beautiful clouds, black and blooming.
giving permission
to crack open,
wiping dullness off the skin
that last coat of sleep.

Now, old and alone,
he feels it again,
that holy silence between the strikes,
that rush of air through the ribs,
the kind that makes love and sin feel small.

The wind doesn’t ask where he’s been.
The rain doesn’t question strength.
They just take him in,
pulling his bones into a long, level song.

No one watching.
No one shouting him back inside.
Only black clouds
reaching low enough
to press their foreheads to his.

In that communion,
the unspoken pact between man and squall
he closes his eyes,
and lets go
of names, of time, of answers.

Only the storm
knows who he was.
Only the storm
still loves him for it.