at the time, he was listening to daniel caesar real heavy

said that he felt my soul in every melody

he said: baby, listen to the lyrics carefully

i notice how the rain and thunder follow you around

i think it’s beautiful how sometimes your days be ugly

he said: you remind me of how the sky golf claps when god cries

when i’m with you, i feel like the warm rain that used to tap dance

on my mother’s thin roof at nighttime

he said: you remind me of the lover i had hidden in my mind since age ten

when i’m with you, i know why real men don’t buy umbrellas

i’m a real man who stands against your heavy wind

i take you in and i am born again

he said that i was a tsunami drowning him, but for some reason

he could only see the rainbow at the end, the gold pot waiting for him

he said that he was strong enough to withstand all of me

and love me harder even if i almost killed him

looking back, i can’t believe i missed it

cus big storms often catch the attention of little boys watching hesitantly from window sills

so when some of them decide to leave the house against mama’s advice

to go play for a minute with the big storm that transfixes them

those little boys only get to the sidewalk before wind’s right hook

and it isn’t until concrete hits that little boys realize

the rain doesn’t feel so pretty when you’re in it

but that’s that young love shit

that when we start to get real it dissolves to lust..shit

the problem with it was a few clear skies in summertime made him jump too quick

so he was already free-falling when he checked and saw the parachute was missing

cus to little boys, maybe i just shimmer like the rain they saw when they sat from afar

maybe i am simply every big storm little boys’ mamas tell them to stay covered from

the dark clouds surrounded him and he hit on the pavement too hard

our love wasn’t love enough to make the pain worth it, we had just started off

by the end i figured every flood was my fault

he even told me so.. and in the next breath he said it wasn’t me

said: maybe we didn’t realize how different we are

said: maybe we don’t fit like we thought

and i thought if i had a time machine i would get in it..go back to the start and tell god get rid of all my flaws..tell him to stop every storm he had coming..and when god says he can do nothing..i’ll get back in the time machine and span the relationship..prolong every moment so that i would not fall in love so quick..and when the love becomes inevitable..i’ll notice the moment the sky starts to twist..confront hurricane before she blows us back to toxic..and if i can’t win against her..we’ll cross dimensions..like five/six of them until we get to a remote location..just watch me..i’ll build a bunker to protect us from any cataclysm tryna stop me..we’ll live in private place where natural disasters sit dormant..i’ll pack up my flaws..walk to the bottom of me and burn them in the basement with every match on the planet..and..in the case that they don’t catch..in the case that flames fall off flaws like raindrops roll off plastic..in case dysfunction latches onto unions like storm clouds hugs horizons..in case conflict sinks into skin like tattoo ink..in case suffering is permanent..i’ll open up the time machine and fill it with every imperfection and insecurity..stow away lighting strikes behind snowflakes..patch every levy begging for relief..then send them far into the future so that he can only see the best of me.. so this time..he will actually fall in love with me..

and decades will pass.. my imperfections collecting dust..

we’ll be gray-haired and wrinkled.. by the time they catch up with us..

and when the moment arrives, when my flaws wash ashore

face-to-face with those big storms that broke us before

when i open the time machine up, finally convinced i had fixed it

convinced we can weather any storm approaching in the distance

and when you still fuck me over you lowdown, dirty

immature coward piece of shit

i will get in my time machine

i will reach for apocalypse

i will visit that little boy

fascinated behind window sill

i will show him a very very big storm

and i will kill him.