When things are too still for too long,
I start to brace myself.
For the moment the bottom gives way.
For the familiar collapse.
And it always does.
It always comes.

First, a part of me crumbles with it,
Before I scold myself
for breaking, at all.

Again.

I can’t help but go numb.
My heart starts to race,
my lungs breathe shallow.

As if they too are waiting
for it all to pass,
for calm to return.

I wish I didn’t know.
I wish I couldn’t sense it.
In the way a shift in the air
warns of thunder before it cracks.

But I feel it rising,
every time,
before it descends.

And when it hits,
the weight of knowing
presses down so hard
I can hardly breathe.

It is not the blow alone that breaks me,
but the waiting.
The endless bracing.
The knowing, that it’s coming.                                                                                     

And it always does. Always.

But each time the quiet returns,
I find myself able to breathe deep once again.
And pray every time for it to last as long as it can.
As some part of me
keeps watching the horizon.
Half-living in dread,
half-living in hope,
always preparing for the fall.

Forever grateful for each quiet moment.