I Feel Alive (A Poem)

This is a poem I'm thinking of submitting to the Writer's Digest competition this year. Let me know what you think.

And, yeah, I know you'll all be wondering, so I'll just tell you now to keep you from having to ask. It's Chris O'Donnell.

I Feel Alive….
I feel alive…
Like, what it means to feel alive--
Not just surviving, simply pressing on….
I feel alive, all full of life:
Vibrant, virulent, vital.

In a storm, a terrible storm all raging,
I am become the lightning strike.
Flare, fire, discharge.
Explosive and blinding and impossible to ignore.
I feel alive….

At midnight,
all the world asleep,
And the clouds conceal the paltry silver lights
and the wind's a whisper, nothing more….
I am become the huntingbird's shriek
The wolf's sharp howl
The piercing cry of a predator, so mighty in his element.
I feel alive….

In the desert,
I'm the rain, cold as ice on burning skin.

In a blizzard,
I'm a fire, pop and crackle and warmth that almost hurts.

In your dreams,
I'm the moment that wakes you screaming, or smiling, or panting for breath.

I feel all full of life:
The biting of a bluster wind,
The whipcrack of a breaking limb,
The shattering of fine stained glass--
or of expensive crystal--
The bitter taste of blood,
The thunder of your heartbeat
when you've run too hard,
The pang of hunger, want, or need.
I am become loneliness and violence and pain…
And beauty, sweetly whispered or crashing down in waves.
I am become all the shining, pounding, loud sensations
that make a man alive.

I feel alive…
because of you.