My roll of thunder was too loud
to hear the taunts that day
when I strutted
my bedazzled orange tutu
to school, and my shoulders never crumbled
as I slipped into my tights
and stepped into the disc of stiff tulle,
strode across the stage with a straight back,
my shoulders didn’t crumble when they played the wrong music,
and it was my thunderous confidence, not my sloppy knees
or the tic-tac hue of my outfit
that won me a spot on the show.
 
But I’m not six years old anymore,
and when my thunder met tsunami,
I retreated into a wind.
No one tries to shut out thunder,
but everyone closes their door to the wind.
 
A wind without conviction,
a wind that listens rather than roars,
a wind taught to bend and turn and dodge and change course
at each obstacle
in order to
survive.
 
My truth no longer resides in unbent shoulders
or the straightness of a spine,
my truth no longer has the audacity to be heard
the way thunder roars
no matter who listens or hides away.
 
My truth is a constant whisper
like the summer breeze in the treetops,
I must strain my own ears to hear the wind
to remember what I have long known but forgotten,
to rediscover the treasures I dug away for safekeeping,
and at the beginning of each harvest season,
I remember with delight that clementine is my favorite fruit,
and I clutch the tic-tac hue in my hand,
and I see myself engulfed in the stiff, round tutu,
and I see some of the
thunder in myself again.