Storm Season

All week
the sky had been practicing.

Clouds swelling wider,
fatter at the edges.
Weathermen speaking in sharper tones.

The air felt different—
heavy, metallic—
but I was four
and had no word for it.

—

I was asleep
when the door burst open.

My name—
urgent in my father’s voice.

My mother’s hands—
quick, shaking—
wrapping me in a blanket
like winter had arrived overnight.

Outside,
rain slapped my face awake.
Wind tore at the trees.
The world was louder than it should be.

I was placed in the backseat.
Doors slammed.
Headlights cut sideways through water.

We drove
into the storm.

Lightning stitched the sky together.
Thunder followed,
close enough
to live inside my ribs.

—

The church basement smelled like dust
and cold cement.

Darker than night.
Quieter than the car.

One narrow window
flashed white
each time the sky split open.

My mother held me tight—
too tight—
and sang something soft
I can’t remember now.

Above us,
the world rearranged itself.

And then—

the siren.

Long.
Mechanical.
Unforgiving.

It swallowed the air whole.

Even now,
I hear it sometimes
in places it doesn’t belong.

—

Eventually
the thunder walked away.
The rain loosened its grip.

We drove home
through branches and silence.

I was placed back in bed
as if nothing had happened.

Another night
in rural Oklahoma.

—

But sleep changed after that.

Summer meant listening—
waiting for footsteps down the hall,
for the sky to clear its throat.

I learned how small we are
under a turning sky.

How walls are suggestions.
How safety is borrowed.

I feared the dark
not for what I couldn’t see,
but for what it could become.

—

Years later
I understand—

my parents weren’t running from the storm.
They were running for me.

The blanket wasn’t just warmth.
It was armor.

The basement wasn’t just shelter.
It was love
poured into concrete and hymnals.

—

Storm season still comes.
Clouds still gather their courage.

And somewhere in the distance
a siren tests its voice.

I still feel it—
that smallness,
that shiver—

but now I know:

the sky can turn green,
the wind can howl its warning,

and love will still
wrap itself around you
and carry you
through the dark.