Tempest

The barometric pressure has dulled in wait for thunder.
The sky is crouching down but under it I feel lighter,
as if the cloud is rising from my palms, empty and full.
And yet, and yet, what is being removed is not burden but its opposite
because what remains is locked room, laceration.

Am I being clear? Clear within ambiguity, I mean?
Why is this a struggle when this is what I do,
when it’s supposed to be what I’m best at?

I could blame this feeling on a lot of things,
although feeling isn’t the right word, and that’s part of it—
that feeling is contact, that this is lack,
a layer of blank around my stretching skin, a pushing
of intent through the bulletproof void—

I want to blame this: that I haven’t written a poem in a year,
that I haven’t been kissed in two.
They’re connected: they are.
Because if I can’t finish, why start?
Throw the pen down, bite back the banter, the smirk.
Don’t make it worse on myself by trying.
Accept this lonesome stelae, perpendicular to the grey horizon.

This storm. This island.