tornado weather.

I've been thinking about and writing about tornadoes. The way they rip through towns, families, walls, and destroy things in their paths. They rip up fences and tear down dollhouses, uproot gardens and smash bedrooms, kill pets and wound children and crush long-built American Dreams.

And now I'm thinking about the more subtle tornadoes, the ones that simmer and build over time, get under our skin and deep into our hearts, and before we know it we're left with debris, wreckage, pure destruction. We're left with overturned lamps, slashed sofas, shattered mirrors. It's hard to walk and find our way back to the doorways, to someone's warm and safe hands. I feel like these tornadoes are the ones to look out for -- who knew we were stitching up disaster with each kiss, each touch, each trusting thought and idea given to someone, all along not aware they held those emotional knives behind their backs? And, maybe scariest of all, is when the tornado settles, and you see the knife, and then you realize the mirror wasn't shattered after all -- you're staring right into it. Those other shadows are nothing compared to the power in your own hands.