Rain or Shine | Poetry Breakdown

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It’s almost like I become a completely different person
whenever I feel the deepest sighs forming in the cavities within my chest. 
8AM mornings turn into 11AM
Bright sunshine into a curtain of fog
Golden honey into artificial sugar packets
Airy steps into heavy stomps

And when the sigh gets released,
it feels like the eye of a hurricane,
a false sense of clarity.
Even as the storm continues to loom behind us,
our routines quickly resume
How were we supposed to know that mistrust tends to be a side effect of optimism?

Now, every time the sun comes out from behind the clouds,
showing off the pigmented blue skies, 
I squint and shield my eyes. 
Rather than rolling up my sleeves to welcome the warmth,
I cross my arms and declare,
	“It’s too hot outside.”
	(No longer satisfied)

It was a really foggy day when I wrote this poem. It made me think about when the last time I saw fog and I couldn’t really recall. It seems like such a mundane thing to remember, but I think weather phenomenons are so interesting. Fog is basically a visible cloud that is close to the Earth’s surface. It typically occurs when there’s a high level of humidity and the water vapors end up condensing around either dust or air pollution in the air. That really makes you think about the air quality though. Yet, it was still so fascinating to see buildings shrouded behind the fog. It was like the sky decided to visit the Earth and I was happily swimming around in it.

I can always seem to write a poem when it comes to weather, maybe you’ve noticed. In this poem, I paralleled different weather phenomenon with the search for contentment. To me, fog can be suffocating. It obstructs and distorts your perspectives. Like I said earlier, for fog to form, water vapors need microscopic particles to condense. In my poem, it can be interpreted as having something that usually provides clarity that becomes tainted with something that shrouds your view. But then, you can have moments or opportunities where you experience clarity. If you don’t have a good concept of how to achieve consistent clarity, then it will remain temporary.

I really like the line I wrote, How were we supposed to know that mistrust tends to be a side effect of optimism? What this means is that when you adapt a positive mindset and always hoping for the best, you can overlook the realism that certain situations may have. You could be taken advantage of or you could be mistaken as being naïve. All of these experiences can cause someone to relinquish their optimism, which The opposite of optimism is pessimism which is always expecting the worse. If you’re only expecting the worse out of everything, that can cause you to become complacent and fail to recognize when hope does arise. Perhaps in my poem, I could ask, How were we supposed to know that complacency tends to be a side effect of pessimism? Optimism and pessimism are two extreme doctrines and I’m personally skeptical of anyone who claims they are solely one or the other. It’s much healthier to simply have a realistic expectation on life. I’m going to hope to get accepted into a great school or be hired by the best employer, but at the same time, I’m going to put in the effort that allows me to do so while knowing that if I’m not chosen, it doesn’t mean that I’ve completely failed. It just means that I have another opportunity to try again.

In the final stanza of the poem, it’s about the failure to recognize when something is good. You could be expecting the sun after a series of cloudy or rainy days, but when the sun comes out, you immediately complain that it’s too hot and bright. What does it take to satisfy you? When will you ever be content?

What gives you a feeling of satisfaction? When was the last time you found yourself genuinely at peace with yourself? Let me know in the comments below! Please like, share, and sign up for the email subscription list! Feel free to check out my writing Instagram and Ko-Fi in the links below – your contribution means a lot and helps me continue this blog! Thank you for reading my poem!

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