.

her body woke up with a startle, legs and hands bending

a little shell of a human being, twistin and turning on a hot tin roof

her movements stop to a halt

the only sign of commotion shown on her tormented face

tears escaping her eyes but she tries to stop it

gentle fingers catching the moisture

touching, grabbing and whisking them away

as if they were never there, swollen eyes just a reminder of a previous state

but now her face is dry, cheeks no longer in flames

just a daze in a dark room, lighted only with the remains

of the flickering candlelight as rain falls outside the window

cooling a moist and steamy summer night

she lays there knees to her chest

a faded memory of a nightmare filling the room, the lies once told and now forming a shape even during daylight

she lays there, gasping for air, like a fish frown on the shore

the night is unsteady dear and so are you

let the moon shine and collect, shine and collect, repeat the words like a child’s lost rhyme, a tender lullaby

a sole tear falls down and a knock on the door follows

her body trembles but she gets up, opening up to a distraction, a common relief, just a little water for a fish frown on the shore

let the moon shine and collect, shine and collect,

repeat the words like a child’s lost rhyme, a tender lullaby

say and repeat, say and repeat

and open the door before this thing swallows you up completely

she looks up and a faded smile lifts the corners of her lips, it's weak but it's there

the fresh air fills her lungs and the rain washes her face, the door opens wider

*

Perhaps I lived a past life as a farmer. It would explain why I often find myself throwing glances at the sky, hoping to find dark clouds dwelling on the sharp blue canvas. My elation at seeing a blanket of grey allowing the sun to rest is unique. It is unlike my eagerness in anticipation of a reunion with an old friend, a celebration, or anything else that invokes excitement. I long for rain not because it grants me joy, as these things do, but because because it offers a form of solace.

Something about the aroma of wet earth, the flash of lightning, the clap of thunder, and drops of water makes me break into tears if I have been melancholic that day, and break into a smile if I have been content. It gives me the courage to talk to a friend who has angered me, and the strength to apologise to a friend whom I have wronged. I do not understand the hand played by rain in drawing out a tangle of emotions so well hidden before it arrived, but the fact remains. When the heavens pour, so do I.

Rain reflects the seasons

Their clouds of condensate

Puddles mirror reasons

My moods to fluctuate

Showers, fresh, in springtime

Lay pollen down to sleep

Cheerful drink of branch and

vine

Tiny buds, soon, peek

Monsoon storms of summer

Strike; a sudden tempest

Drops the size of quarters

Musk scent, its own uniqueness

Golden leaves of fall

Hang, waiting for their grave

Dormancy, gripping their

shawls,

Shearing rains will shave

Stripping bare for winter

Where hope for spring awaits

As gloomy, gray skies hover

And tears precipitate

~

Photo Credit: weknowyourdreams dot com rain photo gallery

Without that expression of feelings

From the sky;

We couldn’t soak in hot baths,

Or have a tea/coffee

We couldn’t eat

Or extract liquid from other food forms.

Couldn’t swim or breathe

Or exist!

Yes I’m glad of the rain

Rain didn't always make me feel lousy. Rain used to be kind of nice in its own way when I was little still and could count on the protection of my mom and dad and big brother. Funny how now not only the rain makes me feel as dreary and bleak as it makes the outside world look and feel, my family, which used to be a source of comfort are now part of the reason rain can make me cry.

See, it used to be that when it was stormy and raining, my big brother and sometimes my mother too, would set up games like Monopoly and Stockticker (can you believe no-one knows what the game Stockticker is anymore?--I tried to find it this last Christmas and no one, but no one had heard of it let alone carried it) and if we were really lucky my brothers freinds, Ron and Dave McKibbon would come over and play too. The group of us would sit around the old card table in my brother's room or sometimes around the kitchen table if my mother was playing too and we'd eat the snacks my mom would put out, but no pop, my family didn't splurge when it came to snacks and stuff, pop was for rich people and people who didn't care what went into their bodies and wasted all their money on stuff they didn't need. But I digress. We would have bowls of Nazis if it was around Christmas time and if it wasn't maybe just some pretzels or crackers or salami sandwiches made on homemade rye which everyone seemed to like except me who longed for white bread and bologna (another thing that only people who didn't care about what they put into their bodies and wasted all their money on bad stuff like pop would buy, but instead of rich people too, it was just poor people without enough sense or money to eat something else that ate bologna and white bread. And maybe a few Italian families. I'm not too sure on that one.)

I am eight years younger than my brother so you can see where it would have felt all safe in a rain storm being with him and his freinds playing a board game snug inside with my mom and dad nearby for good measure. But now I don't have them anymore.

Not cause they are all dead either. If that was the case then maybe rain wouldn't have the ability to make me feel so crappy but they're not. Mom is alive and so is my brother. Dad died about nine years ago. It was the bravest thing he ever did with in his whole life (dying that is) and the one thing I have respect for him for.

My mother is 86 now and she can't protect me anymore. She is so mired with her own thoughts on death and the end that anything happening in my life might as well be happening on another planet for all the impact it has on her. If I do tell her anything she just sighs all stressed out sounding like, and says how much it worries her but why I don't know. Its not like she does anything about it or like if affects her life in anyway. And in the next hour or even less its all forgotten anyway. She's go it beat. My dad left her all the money and my brother is making sure its looked after right.

That is if right is making sure that his daughter and he and his wife get the lions share of it in the end. He's already been given hundreds of thousands of dollars and my mom just finished signing over the family home along with all its contents (all my memories and board games on rainy days) to his daughter who for some unknown reason hates my guts even though I may have spoke to her a handful of times in my entire life. Her and her Ouzbekistainian boyfreind who has a 100,000 dollar truck on payments but doesn't hold down a full time job now own my families house while I am struggling to find a place that I can afford to live and the rents just keep going up.

Somehow that pretty little blond haired girl who needed protecting from storms and bologna and too much pop turned into the perfect black sheep for this family. The person designated to take the fall for all imperfections and wrong doings committed. My brother has seen to that. Mom says he wouldn't dare be so awful to me if dad was still alive but then why can he do it now? How can he hold my mother so scared of him that he can threaten her with being cut off from him and his greatness if she continues to have contact with me? She hasn't completely cut me off yet, but close and now that the house is gone?????

So ya, when I see rain now it makes me sad. It reminds me of the times that arent anymore and it reminds me that even families can turn against eachother and hurt eachother worse than anyone else. I might have well have ate balongna when I was young.

Rain, those

Precious drops

Life-giving

Primordial soup

Suspended Condensation becoming

Victims of Gravity

Plummeting to continue the

Enduring cycle

Of water,

H2O

Saturating everything

It touches

My face, wet

Rivers like tears of

Joy

Droplet upon droplet land against the window that I'm looking out of. My heart pumps in rhythm to the little tinkles as the water lands against the glass. I traced along the traces of water on the window. I've never really known how I feel about the rain. Today, the rain has become my friend, comforting me in my loneliness. It makes me feel as though I'm not alone; there's still life out there to find. But other days, rain seems like an enemy creating a barricade to leave me indoors all day. Stuck. Alone. Hopeless.

Overall, I guess rain is a blessing and a curse. The fields will be watered, but there may be flooding. The rain is refreshing, but the humidity will make you feel as though you can't breathe. The rain can be a friend, but it will also trap you only for itself. It is a jealous, vicious love. But ultimately, the rain makes me happy, but it can also make me sad.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

But luckily for me

I'm dead.

Raindrops are getting me so wet

I died the other day

Don't fret.

At least inside I'm warm and dry

And in a special place

Don't cry.

Your teardrops are falling with the rain

And running down your face

In vain.

I'm dead.

I could walk through the rain for hours. It reminds me of you. The sun is too bright, too energetic. Rain, like you, is calm and quiet, gentle and serene. We would dance together, not caring if we were soaked. We would laugh. We would smile. We were happy.

We never got our last dance.

Now the rain is lonely.

I miss you.

It's a slushy rain. Something close to snow and adjacent to hail packed in large gobs that softly patter into my face. The slush is a reminder that spring hasn't won yet, that winter still exists in the second week of April for some reason. I am out on the street, walking. I am wearing jeans a sweatshirt and a jacket, marvelling at the fact that that is neither my uniform nor my pajamas. It has been too long since that was last true, even longer since it was true on a weekday like today. I told myself I was going out to get dinner for myself, but that's a half lie. I wanted to be out in the rain. Take the time to let it patter my cheeks, walk in its puddles and drink in its gloom. To see weather that matches how I'm feeling, that all my doubts and self hatred can rest in with something resembling ease, even when those doubts are the knowledge of how much of an asshole I am as a rich white boy walking around sad in the rain. There's a peace in the rain, an acceptance it feels like. As if the world always lies with the sun and bright blue sky, faking a joyful smile for the moon, and now the smile slips letting out the rain. The world is being honest, giving what feels like the only reasonable response to what the world is. That's bullshit though. It's just a full patch of clouds that has let its contents fall when the air around it was just barelly above 32 degrees fahrenheit. There is no more truth in my angsty interpretation then in others who just see that it's gross and awful out.

But few of those people are out, they are safe inside leaving the streets nearly empty. I can walk with my head down and still avoid running into someone. It was another day like this when an older man told me too look up and smile because I was "doing good" I was in uniform then. He saw the long hair and the red jacket and assumed a pretty young women saving some poor child. He was wrong on three counts. Now though, I am ignored. I can be a part of the city without having to interact with any of its ocupants. The slush can patter my hair, and I can look up to see the light gray clouds lying behind the buildings along main street, and I can smile. A smile that isn't a hesitant fleeting one from a moment of humor in the bleakness, but a smile that comes as a reaction to the shitty imperfect city that's a part of the shitty imperfect world where I live my imperfect life, a smile that says that that's ok, that I can live with, and make do with shitty and imperfect at least until the rain ceases.