tyrants

stormborn

lightning strikes and it unfolds across my skin, where my hips have swollen, at the back of my thighs,
i wait for the furl of thunder, find it in my lungs, it echoes up through my throat. i am braver, still, stronger, lived a lifetime in a night,
i ripen the way fruits do when the flowers finally set them free, i am less crooked elbows and more bared teeth,
if i could go back i would still your hands, i would pull at your smoldering flesh until it is leather off your bones, i would see the scars you left unknit themselves, stop seeing you in any tall shadow, i would be different, and maybe better for it. but i would be no less me.