Do Not Believe The Rain

I used to write poems about memories of childhood rainstorms, 

when the sunlight sifted softly through the smiling drizzle

and the clouds smiled as though they had nothing to hide. 

But now, the rain does not hold a smiling face or the beauty of an untouched childhood, 

it is the raw reality of the blood it washes away in alleyways,

the tears it mixes with as it slides down windowsills and along sidewalks. 

It is loneliness, the toxicity, the forever flowing of a false friend in springtime, 

coming to the people who can't see the flowers, saying,  

"dearest, the storm will save you, put faith in the beauty of a spring thunderstorm" 

and that is why children are scared of thunder and lightning, 

because they can sense something's wrong, but can't recognize

what it is. 

and yet, here I am, sitting with the rain, 

letting it flow down me, cleansing me of something, anything, 

letting it take my tears like they were never mine, to begin with. 

the people would wonder, why I am standing out under the sky, 

in the middle of the night when the only people awake are those whose dreams haunt them,

why I am standing out under the stars-

oh wait... there are no stars, they have been covered by clouds, blurred out with rain.

I know it sounds dramatic that I went outside in the rain to weep,

my tears mixing with the water, the dirt, the toxins washed from the air, 

pushed into rain, disguised with petrichor. 

I know it's weak that I flinched every time the raindrops 

cold, unwelcome

hit my upturned face, but I had to be a part of the storm, 

I had to witness the loneliness of a tempest that has not calmed. 

or perhaps,

perhaps I was one of those people that the rain whispered to, 

telling me to put faith in a tempest

and perhaps, 

perhaps I believed in their lies. 

don't believe them, 

a storm is a chaotic, 

messed-up, 

lonely, 

toxic, 

piece of 

reality.