Give Anything

Everything was quiet.
I wonder if that's what tornado victims think
right before the tornado hits their house.
Everything was quiet after a pounding storm
where the sky fractured into dozens of pieces,
split by bolts of bright white light,
and the heavens opened up their gates
as torrents of hail hit the ground
and bounced off cars, houses...
people...
Water lubricating the streets
as far-away car brakes squealed in fear
of something more sinister to come.
You never know when a tornado is going to strike.

Saturday, 10:36 PM.
If I was breathing - I must have been - I stopped.
If there was calm - I'm sure there was - it ended.
All that was left was a house,
rubble
scattered a dozen different directions.
Terror materialized
with an awareness that nothing would ever be the same.

I can't find the words, even now
or maybe I'm just afraid to say them.
It'll make it real
and I'd give anything for it not to be.
What a phrase "give anything"
We say it without thinking
not really meaning it
but sometimes it's true.
If it was in my power...

But it's not.

The tornado has hit, and nothing can undo that.
I can clean up the debris.
I can build another house
but the damage has already been done.
A tornado goes away
but some things stay with you forever.

I'll face the future with any strength I have left,
trying to remember who I was before the storm of the century
because some things are impossible to forget.

Like the night the fabric of the universe tore
and I lived to write about it.