Will You Dance With Me in the Downpour?

Reclaiming My Rhythm: Day 20 of My Cycle

Sometimes,
I feel like a wildfire
not the kind that destroys,
but the kind that refuses
to burn half-bright.

I don’t know how to be
anything but all sky
sun and shadow,
storm and stillness,
a whole season inside a single breath.

I’ve been told I’m too much
too many roots,
too many rivers,
too many winds speaking at once
through the cracks in my ribs.

I’ve watched people marvel
at my mountains,
then quietly slip away
when they realized
the climb takes more than a glance.

They love my spring
the bloom, the sweetness,
the wildflowers I braid into every sentence.
But they forget
I am also winter.
I go quiet.
I go deep.
I freeze when I am not met with care.

And still, I wait
like the redwoods do,
patient in my knowing
that the right ones grow slowly,
that the ones worth leaning into
are not afraid of standing
in the full weather of me.

I’m not asking for rescue.
I don’t need shelter
from my own sky.

I just want someone
whose roots won’t tear
when the rain comes,
someone who hears the thunder
and stays anyway.

Love, for me,
isn’t in the easy days
it’s in the ones
who reach for me
when the wind howls,
who call my chaos beautiful,
not broken.

So I wait,
not in loneliness,
but in reverence
for the rare kind of heart
that won’t flinch
at the forest fire or the frost.

The one who sees me,
and stays.

Maroon Bells Wilderness in Aspen, 2023.