Earthquake

I cannot be the one.

Dropping this bomb,
swinging the hammer,
unleashing a wrecking ball on everything they know and take comfort in.

I want them to know. I want to know how they feel, what they think, what they want.

But knowing is the very thing that cannot be undone. Words cannot be unheard.

I cannot unleash the tidal wave of emotion that will overcome them upon knowing.  I do not want to be that thing that affects a complete shifting of the very ground beneath their feet.

If he is a hurricane, a storm that blows then is calm, a tornado that touches down and wreaks havoc; I do not want to be the earthquake that shakes them at their core.

I am trying to be a tree. A pillar of strength, something stable and life-giving.
But this tree cannot weather such storms for too much longer.