One more beat

Thunderstorms are ballets.
Clouds catch lightning bolts, elegant yet powerful.
Cascading raindrops tap dance on the sidewalk.
Like tadpoles in a small pond they race around puddles.

Still, harder the rain falls.
My anxiety crashes with each thunder clap.
The rain beats the ground with defiance.
The dirt and clay give way to the mounting watery grave.

I see myself in the reflection.
I am treading water, barely floating.
The suction of the mud pulls on me.
An embrace I am unready to receive.

Hail falls.
One, two, now a deluge of frozen pebbles bounce off my eyes and lips.
A spray of water moves like a wave across the overgrown garden.
There I lie untended, waiting to die.

Why should I care?
Where is the hand to pull me free?
Where is the arm that is to help me fight the fight?
Where are those eyes that mesmerize?

I want to gaze into those eyes as I fall asleep, the forever sleep.
The sleep where I meet ancestors.
But those eyes are crying.
"Do not sleep" they say.

In a flash, electrified.
My muddy grave a conductor.
The rain beats my body.
Submerged.

I cannot move from my clay coffin.
I hear nothing but the slowing of my heart.
One beat for each love I leave behind.
One more beat.