Thunder and Lightning

Lightning struck the beach one time when I was just a kid and turned the sand into glass.
Something like lightning struck again recently, but not on the beach.
Where I press my smooth skin like glass up against your thighs.
I think I know what you’re thinking.
And though I’ve had you,
I’ve not really had you.

Your thunderous words are what got me here,
So don’t you dare abandon them now.
Last Friday, as you slid your lips along my collarbone, you discovered
The fireflies that dance up and down in syncopated rhythm in the fields behind my house. Your thumb ran across the hem of my shorts and I know you saw the tiny white lightning streaks still visible after these years but had the tact not to mention them. They were from another lifetime. A scattering of pale tattoos that I’ll wear like gold crowns, yet you’ll wonder if I’m so royal.

Lightning flashes outside my window, and a few seconds later, I hear the thunder, but I don’t know if it’s the thunder of static electricity created by heavy negative particles sinking into the bottom of clouds, or the pounding in my own ears causing electric sparks to charge in the silence between your words. I think it belongs outside.

This could be us. We don’t quite fit together. My curves won’t align with your angles and my ankles brush your knees as we tangle in sheets together. As you tangle your fingers into my hair and I tangle my words into thin air because I know you’re not listening but the way your lips tug at my earlobe makes me forget what I was saying anyway.

Sparks do fly but not for lovers. Sparks dance up and down like the fireflies (lightning bugs, you call them) do in the fields. Sparks crack and shatter the sky for us outside my window at 6:36 a.m. while it’s still mostly dark and you’ve got me wrapped in your Herculean arms.

You did not let me gently warm up to the idea of you but you crashed into me at a terrible time and I tore my own sky apart in hopes I would hear, not silence from you, but a booming declaration.

I am the lightning that strikes down, and you are the thunder. You are the sound that follows me but disappears all too soon once the summer ends. And I’m still waiting for that booming declaration. And I’ll wait until the summer storms are over.