"Rain Shadow" by Scottlynn Ballard

I have been waiting to bring this poem to term

For a while now.

The words have lied stillborn in the back of my throat

like bad breath that I’ve yet to wash the taste out.

In between, they live and rot on my tongue silently

My brain wept for an open casket

My lips sealed shut.

How could I tell the world to mourn for a story I never told?

In another life I was a mountain

risen from depths of a sea that is now a lake

I was filled with life. I was tried by fire.

I was green and tall and wondrous to all

And I was dead. Beneath the lush tree roots and

Behind the clouds I’d weep into the lake

I was dead.

There are

two lives we live while we are still green.

One slips out into the day before the sun rises

Squeezes into the gap-toothed grims and thundering laughs

(some nights, you may even catch lightning at the peak).

When she comes home, she is soaked and cold. She cannot tell where the rain stopped

And where the tears began.

The other breathes as though tumbleweeds raked across her lungs

alveoli sifting through the sand. Her hands hold callouses like medallions--

She has not yet fallen on her shield. But her pity withered in the shadow of this

One, and she cannot find it in her heart to warm her.

Not when she has never had to die.

There are

two lies we tell ourselves while we are still green--

that we only live once

And there is rain shadow to be seen.

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Photo Credit: Ms. Loesche