I knew the geography of myself like an old map.
I didn’t believe in tornadoes, typhoons, or anything else
That could take me off track. They, like everything else,
Didn’t happen in my world.

You swept through me without warning
such precise devastation,
tore through my flesh in a torrent,
with no thought of what you left behind, or who.

I know what it means to exist now,
having scavenged bare trees
for the fruits of myself.

I crawled out of the wreckage of my bones
A survivor of the shipwreck of myself.
I listen to the forests now
Hear their hushed storms loud as gossiping girls.
I am a fortress
That no storm or hurricane can break.