Answer Key

I thought I was alone in the tormenting tornado
No others to be seen through a foggy gray shadow
Waiting for a perfect lock and a key
What had I done for the tornado to deserve me?

How would I expel it from my clogged mind?
Overwhelmed, but
The answer
Is only within

Nevertheless
I see the sun leaving a calm warm glow in its wake
Fields and meadows bathing and beaming in beauty
Each string of grass and weeds illuminated in pale yellow
The tornado is absent—
Physically

I see civilians unite as their efforts entwine
The tornadoes are just another cluster of thoughts and emotions in my mind
Like rivers of rapids the color of chocolate milk
Just a battling community of ideas in so many of our minds

We’re not alone
Not afraid

But the key to ending tornadoes
Is only within

We rely on each other to hold the hurt
When the only medicine is somewhere inside
Silently whispering

So gaze at the swirling spinning wheel of sparkling stars winking back at Earth
The luscious, quavering treeline in deepest of greens
The waves washing away from war:
Upon a sandy sea shore

And hear the harmony of hollering hermit thrushes…
If it helps

Yet don’t expect to find answers
In the delicate scent of blossoming roses
A thousand meters tall
Undergoing some unexplained form of plant metamorphosis
Growing

Because what you’re looking for
Is only within

Because the tornadoes are no more than greedy thieves
They never deserved me
They never deserved you
Or any of us

And we all have snags
We all have secrets

Crumbled beneath the time when we understood
When we “lived in the moment”
But now asking ourselves

Why?

Nevertheless
Pick apart the constellations, the cosmos
Framing our protective dome
Devour cotton candy creemees with a silver spoon
Until they turn to soupy foam
Hold hands and savor the sunsets
And their soft, warm, orange glow

And hear the harmony of hollering hermit thrushes…
But—

Don’t wait for joy;
Don’t wait for desires to spring up as miracles
Initiate

Because only in sorrow
Can we discover a better tomorrow
All on our own

Because tomorrow’s potential
Is only within

And how today unfolds like flower petals in spring
Brimming with bursting boatloads of possibility
Is up to you

And the risks you dare to take
For your own deep desires
Is the key to their coming true

Because together
We are stronger than
Mental, tireless tornadoes of self-deprecation

When we’re wearily searching
For the answer to tornadoes
For the answer to desires

We’ll know
That with courage
We are the initiators of our own joy

And therein lies the key
Amidst tornadoes—
That only we

​Are the answer