washed out sky

Washed out sky:
he tells it like it is,
but she thinks he is hiding something
because
he holds his breath in between sentences
as if he were trying to choke the truth from coming out.

his stories last for hours... sometimes forever
chronicles of the storm, the flickering lights,
the washed out sky, the rain.
then he settles in to the sound of his own voice
and begins to whisper.
she listens to him speak about the morning,
and the small fragments of silence he feels before daybreak
before the sun screams, before the darkness burns off like fog.

now he smiles at her as if she is part of the story.
as if she were the calmness of the morning that cleansed his soul.
as if she were the lit candle that kept burning when
the power failed and the lights died.
as if she were the storm and
knew exactly where the rain would fall.

what about that washed out sky that hovered for days?
that he could not explain, so his story ended there.
but she claims that his eyes stole the blue right out of the sky.


sincerely,
kayla