Love as Weather

Love sweeps in like a sky untethered,
its clouds heavy with secrets,
its breath the wind that tugs at my sleeves,
that whispers through the hollows of my ribs.

Sometimes it is a storm—
furious, untamed, and incandescent—
lightning carving your name across the corridors of my chest,
thunder hammering against my ribcage,
rain slicing the windows of my thoughts
with the sharp, sweet ache of longing.
It leaves the streets of my mind awash,
pools of memory reflecting every fragment of you,
and I wade through them barefoot, trembling,
afraid to sink, afraid to fly.

Other times, it drifts as gentle rain,
a hush over the city of my heart,
soft as a secret sigh,
touching the edges of my smile,
curling in the corners of my hair.
It fills the cracks where sunlight fears to reach,
stirs the dust of old sorrows into petals,
and I feel myself bending,
folding into it like trees leaning toward dawn,
silent, intimate, drenched in the tender hush
of moments that might never speak.

And yet, love can also be the merciless heat of noon,
a sun that presses against the spine of my soul,
its quiet blaze burning slow and steady,
melting the ice I thought was permanent,
humming through my veins with invisible fire.
Even in stillness, it scorches,
its warmth heavy, electric, unavoidable,
and I am both prisoner and worshipper
beneath its brilliant tyranny.

Love is never predictable.
It is the hurricane that uproots my certainty,
the drizzle that lingers on my skin
long after the clouds have passed,
the sweltering sun that stays hours too long
and teaches me patience through fire.
It curls around the corners of my world,
breathes into the spaces I thought empty,
whistles through my hair,
presses against my chest like a living being
that knows my fears better than I do.

And I, earth-bound and trembling,
bow and sway beneath its moods—
sometimes breaking, sometimes blooming,
always drenched, always reshaped,
always listening to the pulse of its infinite,
unruly heart.

- Khushi Kaul