Mistaken for Weather
You call me weather
so you don’t have to listen.
Rain is easier than warning.
Wind is easier than intention.
A storm is easier than admitting
something answered.
You say,
It’s just a system,
as if systems don’t decide.
As if patterns don’t remember.
As if repetition doesn’t rhyme.
I speak in cycles, not surprises.
In pressure that slowly rises.
In heat that waits, then multiplies,
in calm that studies before it tries.
You check the forecast, check the screen,
check the odds of “unforeseen.”
But nothing here is out of frame—
you just renamed what stayed the same.
You call it weather when seas climb stairs.
Weather when fire learns new prayers.
Weather when seasons miss their cues
and wear the wrong familiar shoes.
But weather doesn’t keep a ledger.
Weather doesn’t test the measure.
Weather doesn’t balance debt
from every line you overstepped.
I’m not the rain. I’m why it falls.
I’m not the quake. I’m why things stall.
I’m not the heat. I’m what it means
when balance breaks behind the scenes.
You thought silence meant I slept.
You thought stillness meant I’d forget.
But I don’t nap. I don’t reset.
I store what hasn’t paid its debt.
I warned you soft. I warned you slow.
Through shifting ice and undertow.
Through crops that struggled just to grow.
Through coastlines learning how to go.
You said,
It’s normal. It’s a phase.
You said,
It’s just a hotter day.
You said,
The planet’s always changed.
You were right.
You just forgot the pace.
Because when change accelerates,
it stops being weather
and starts being weight.
I’m not angry. I’m exact.
I don’t attack. I answer back.
I don’t erupt without a cause—
I follow pressure. I follow laws.
Mistaken for weather.
Known as chance.
Measured in seconds,
spoken in spans.
You live in forecasts.
I live in rhyme.
You check tomorrow.
I keep time.
And when you finally hear the tone
beneath the thunder, beneath the foam,
you’ll realize what spoke wasn’t sky—
it was the ground
remembering its own design.
Earth is not the villain of this story.
Earth is the story.
