10 Things That Remind Me of A Thunderstorm (freewrite)

Got this via my beloved soulmate Anwar Jabari Johnson


10 things that remind me of a thunderstorm

1.
Ancestors falling
from their avalanche of wander woes
gripping to the roof of her mouth for heaven
afterlife

My mother's voice
the lioness she taught me to fear
...being.

Mane slipped into its aftermath,
the depth of her transmutable story
causing unknowing listeners to call her
"MR" Yussuf
like they know how shes been my father

2.
Our lips meeting for the 1st time
the passion that made everything messy
Have you ever clutched a storm in your arms before?
Tamed it?
Are you sure
Minilik?

3.
An unnumbered summer
2008
Where some girls began shedding their skin together,
learned to stop being ashamed
of how they had shared it together.
No one told you you looked this good naked

4.
A bag of Italian leather shoes and suits
that always seemed better buys than
formula, or juice, or school fees
or marriage counseling.
My older sister at 15
rolling his belongings down the stairs
right after calling the police

5.
the night when it began to become clear
that little girls do not grow into 18 year olds
that hate men for no reason.
That there had been clouds beneath her eyes breaking
not high enough to forget what happened
That the fogs and opaque bottles full
of blackouts and drowning
the nights when alcohol found prescriptions
readable, understanding,...friendly
Had all
never been for no reason

6.
The day they realize
they did not welcome a daughter back properly
When a whole country
will rise above itself
into the frame of what
its dislocated daughter
has always viewed it to be...
My the cheering

7.
Dec 2009
A doctor saying something
about a lung collapsing
A prayer in a hospital bed
that means nothing
In a room she is sharing with a woman who is 90
A 19 yo realizing, again, she is dying

8.
A quiet night in Chicago
at the most recent BNV
When something is happening
that shouldn't be
Pathetic attempts to regain agency
Have you no idea what type of woman
you want to be anymore?
Are you looking for her
by finding
everything you don't want to be

9.
"that night" "that summer"
I had a vision of my deceased sister walking towards me

10.
"finishing"
the sound of breaking to begin again
pretending you've lived already