The Storm

I see the storm raging outside.  I feel it.  It pulses through me, and I can feel that it’s alive, as if it’s moving through my very being and touching me on the inside.  The wind tears through the trees, pushing them, bending them, until I think they’ll break and splinter into a thousand pieces.

Dark clouds cover the sky, black and gray sentinels, floating slowly, silently over the battled being waged below.  Lightning tears through them, illuminating them in flashes of yellow and white.  Its electric fingers crackling with life and energy.  It superheats the air, expanding it as it flows through.  The air snaps back into place in its wake, creating a boom that rips through the quiet; echoing, reverberating until it fills every inch of the air around me.  And just as suddenly, it’s quiet again.

Rain is in the clouds, building and preparing.  I can smell it, fresh and wet, waiting.  The wind continues to whip around me; tousling my hair, ruffling my clothes, gusting against me.  It’s testing me, testing my strength.  Will I bend to withstand it, or will I break into a thousand pieces?

I can see the storm raging, but is it outside or inside me?