Partly Cloudy Skies

You are this feeling.

You are the just warm enough sun and a shy, gentle breeze to turn my face to. Quietly, though, so it won't notice my attention and flee. Being around you is being half bathed in sunlight and half obscured by shadows, all the while aware of the delicate balance, as if the varying degrees of gray in the lethargic clouds are somehow affected by any action I could take. I could be annoyed by the wind moving my papers around, and I often am, but right now it's more pleasing than anything, so I'll leave it be. God help the poor breeze if it carries one of my ideas away, though.

Sometimes, you're moody clouds and sharp wind, that atmosphere that comes right before a storm--the one that tells me quite clearly that despite the bravado, there won't be any rain. Just suffocating clouds that threaten to attack but only congregate overhead, stealing sunlight, warmth, energy.

To be fair, you can also be crisp, cool air and cloudless blue, but that always comes right after a downpour, anyway. And yes, let's be fair. You can also be light raindrops on shoulders, cooling skin, never more fierce than eye opening.

But most often, you're partly cloudy skies.

I can't describe you in anything other than washed out metaphors I'm sure I stole from someone much more well known and talented than me. I guess what you really are to me isn't something I can break down into a few reasons why or some memories I only half remember, anyway. Maybe you're nothing--maybe you're everything. Or maybe you're just my friend.

But that isn't really a "just" at all, is it?