• I can feel you coming back,
      my old nemesis,
      you dreadful tempest.

    Labored breaths desperately attempt
      to refresh my Being; futile efforts
      to cleanse your poison from my air.

    Movements slowed down by your presence
      weighing me down, suffocating beneath
      your unwavering persistence
      as a ghastly force of nature’s indifference.

    I can feel you drawing nearer,
      inevitable force of destruction,
      I recognize your chaotic return.

    Constructing barriers to ward off your gale
      with utter uncertainty of their sufficiency;
      but I have weathered you before.

    Shaking hands grasp for something, anything,
      to alleviate me from your hellish comeback,
      knowing fully well you are inescapable.
      I get to know you better with each visit.

    I can feel you here now,
      you old dark cloud,
      what is your purpose but to invoke misery?

    Understanding the forces of Gaia
      do nothing to diminish my disdain
      for Her amorality. She culls her parasites,
      with my Temple on Her tainted land.

    Why must you stalk me, malevolent storm?
      Have I been planted in the wrong location?
      Have I angered some unknown gods?

    I can feel you within me,
      a hurricane battering inner walls,
      an icy downpour weighing heavily.

    Knowing I can never escape you,
      remembering the biting cold of your Gehenna.
      Unwavering in the protection of my Temple,
      confident in the strength of my Sanctuary.

    You reign terror over my Temple, my Sanctuary:
      stealing my Body, sewing calamity in my Mind.
      Always looming, ever dreadful.

    I know you are my storm,
      eternally on the horizon,
      biding your time.

    Fearing the unpredictability of your strength each time,
      forcing courage that is barely possessed.
      Familiar with your pestilential nature.

    You might always plague my Being,
      but you are no different
      than others of your kind.

    Solely managing to weather your floods
      by recognizing your nature:
      as toxic as it is habitual.

    My familiar friend: you,
      like all of nature’s storms,
      will pass.

    And when you pass,
      I will
      remain
      standing.