Yours Truly 2017 / Cascadia College / Bothell, WA 2017 YT Online Book | Page 15

My heart was raining yesterday. Gloomy wool clouds had gathered there to lean on each other’s shoulders and cry and cry. Their woe fell in waves and sighs that softly sagged with the weight of their choking misery. Their echoes folded thunder over a sodden scape drenched in melancholy, as a grandmother’s quilt fallen in the sea. Puddles gathered fat red drops and held them close in dense, foggy breath. And I fell asleep, my dear, to the rolling of slowly bleeding waves and the wrenching faraway sobs of some lost and lonely child. But in that sleep, love, I dreamed of you. And while my eyes were closed the Earth shifted her weight to the other foot. Those clouds, so sad, lifted their heads and sniffed and wiped their silver eyes. Their drumming, windy heartbeat slowed and calmed. Those crimson puddles sank away, pulled by a tear-rusted anchor to settle at the bottom of an indifferent ocean full of rusty anchors from a thousand ships whose captains were too young or drunk or tired or selfish to sail them. Those woolen, punished clouds rubbed sleepy eyes and yawned their open mouths never closing. And in those mouths I saw your hands pushing heavy shoulders apart to let in a tired setting sun. Nimbus and cumulus snuggled close in the massaging warmth of your humming oranges and purples. And so the sky slept while I slept and the crescent moon was a toothless smile to mimic mine. And I dreamed of you, dear, and completely forgot that my heart was raining yesterday. 13