The sky began to turn grey.
Not the romantic grey
poets give to sorrow
when they need sorrow
to look beautiful.
This was the grey of unpaid bills,
hospital corridors,
a cup of coffee gone cold
beside a letter
I never had the courage to open.
I looked up.
The sky looked ordinary.
That was the frightening part.
Then the trees began to move.
Everyone blamed the wind.
We always blame the wind.
It is easier than asking
why the branches were already broken.
A choice is a strange thing.
At first
it resembles a door.
Only afterwards
do you notice
what it has closed behind you.
The leaves began to scatter.
Some landed in the gutter.
Some disappeared beneath cars.
One caught against my shoe
and stayed there
as though it knew my name.
I did not remove it.
There are things
we carry longer
when we pretend
we have forgotten them.
The wind grew louder.
Or perhaps
I was becoming quieter.
I could no longer tell
which of us was moving.
Then the first thunder came.
I have never trusted thunder.
It arrives without evidence,
without explanation,
and makes the past
sound as though it is happening again.
For a fraction of a second
I remembered what happened.
Then, in the same breath,
I remembered what might have happened.
The difference between the two
was only a life.
Mine, perhaps.
Someone else's.
It is difficult to mourn
a future that never existed.
There is no grave for it.
No flowers.
No name carved into stone.
Only that occasional sound
inside the chest
when the weather changes.
I lit a cigarette.
The smoke climbed towards the clouds
as though it knew
where I had been trying to go.
I watched it disappear.
Perhaps that is what prayer is:
a small amount of smoke
sent towards a God
who may or may not be listening.
Another thunderclap.
I thought of the people
I had loved badly.
The ones I left.
The ones who left.
The ones I lost
without either of us going anywhere.
Funny, isn't it?
We spend years
learning how to say goodbye
to people who are still alive.
The sky darkened.
I waited for rain.
Not for forgiveness.
Forgiveness is an expensive word
and I had very little left to spend.
I wanted something simpler.
A storm.
A clean ending.
A reason to believe
that all this pressure
was leading somewhere.
But the rain did not come.
The trees stopped moving.
The street became still.
And for the first time
I wondered whether the storm
had ever been above me at all.
Perhaps the clouds
were only the shape
my thoughts had taken.
Perhaps the wind
was nothing more
than the consequence
of a door I should never have opened.
Perhaps the thunder
was the sound
between what happened
and what I still insist
could have happened.
Then a drop of water
fell upon my face.
I smiled.
Another followed.
I closed my eyes.
For a moment
I could not tell
whether the sky
had finally begun to weep
or whether, after all these years,
I had finally begun
to rain.
enitnatsnoC oãoJ
-
Author:
enitnatsnoC oãoJ (Pseudonym) (
Offline) - Published: September 4th, 2026 14:30
- Comment from author about the poem: Tell me, what did you understand from this poem?
- Category: Sad
- Views: 7
- Users favorite of this poem: clarity by me
- In collections: enitnatsnoC oãoJ.
Offline)
Comments2
Nicely written. Your poem revolves around personal introspection, the nature of choices, and the inevitability of time's passage. Forgiveness and letting go.
omg ♡
Thank you for seeing what lies beneath the words.
Perhaps that is what time does to us: it turns choices into ghosts, regrets into mirrors, and forgiveness into the quiet art of burying what we once were.
Letting go is rarely an act of peace. Sometimes, it is simply learning to walk away from the ruins without asking them to follow.
I’m grateful you found something of yourself within the poem.
There are metaphors here and introspection a feeling of depression that turns to forgiveness. Well done
There is a little monster in every mirror,
smiling when you look away.
I asked mine,
“Are you the reason I became this way?”
It laughed.
Not because it knew the answer—
but because it knew
I would keep asking.
I buried my regrets beneath the floorboards,
but they learned to whisper through the wood.
I forgave the people who broke me,
which was terribly polite of me.
Some wounds deserve revenge.
Others deserve a chair,
a cup of tea,
and the courtesy of being forgotten.
I once mistook sadness for an ending.
How adorable.
Sadness is merely a door
that forgot which room it leads to.
So I walked through it.
On the other side,
I found myself waiting.
Older.
Colder.
Smiling.
“Have you come to save me?” I asked.
“No,” I replied.
“Then why are you smiling?”
Because, my dear,
if madness has taught me anything,
it is this:
The world doesn't become less cruel
when you understand it.
You simply become harder to frighten.
And forgiveness?
Forgiveness is not mercy.
It is removing someone's name
from the list of things
you allow to haunt you.
So go on.
Choose your path.
Lose yourself.
Become someone you promised you'd never be.
And when you finally meet yourself
at the end of the road—
don't ask whether you survived.
Just smile.
Sometimes,
the corpse is the only one
who knows you're still alive.
You are welcome and yes it is hard to know anything for certain
To be able to comment and rate this poem, you must be registered. Register here or if you are already registered, login here.