Long ago, you were a clap of a thunder,
the power behind a gentle smile,
the pulling of a window shade
the clinking of ice cubes against glass.
You were the lines of experience around dark, bright eyes.
You were the first breath of the morning,
the caress of a clean t-shirt, a cup of coffee,
a smiling face in the local paper.
You were the gravel of a safe path,
the light filtering through the ocean.
A flash of inspiration,
a promise whispered of great things to come.
A raindrop on a windowpane,
on the black-brimmed hat of a grey city,
on the dry, raised palm of a laborer in Mexico.
You were beautiful to see
and impossible to forget.

But when the sky grew dark,
you filled the darkness with lightning.
You poured whiskey into the souls of the lonely,
and, in return, they danced in your wake.
But when you were lightning,
you struck at those not meant to be struck down.
You were a hurricane, a mudslide, a tornado, a flash fire.
The finger on the trigger, the gleam in the eyes of a liar.
You were acid rain
on an arid world.

And when you cast your eyes on a planet
that glared back at you with flickering yellow resentment,
you passed on,
leaving the world behind you sputtering and choking,
trapped in a flood.