April Showers

It’s sup­posed to rain all of to­day, and I’m stuck in­side, so I fig­ured now might be a good time to post this “poem” (flash fic­tion? flash flood?) that I wrote a while ago.

I don’t usu­ally post my po­etry, be­cause I write these mostly for my­self, but here’s a glimpse, I guess.

Of course, this one is­n’t ac­tu­ally about the rain — but I do feel way more com­fort­able writ­ing about the weather than any­thing else this may be about, so here you go. I’ll stop stalling now.

Torrential

A day in late sum­mer.

You awaken one morn­ing and it’s in the air. The smell of an­tic­i­pa­tion. An overwhelming sen­sa­tion of ten­sion.

It’s in the air. Not rain, but the hint of rain. Not a storm, but the shadow of a storm. You step out­side and feel it on your skin.

And you brace your­self for the in­evitable, the tor­ren­tial.

The down­pour.

As if God him­self had flipped a switch and opened the gates. An in­stan­ta­neous, mirac­u­lous change. A re­fresh­ing change. And a flood of every­thing you did­n’t know you wanted.

You stand there, get­ting drenched, rev­el­ling in the power of the stac­cato beats, get­ting your fill, un­til you’re drip­ping in it. The wa­ter rubs away any past dirt still cling­ing to your skin.

A small voice way in the back is shout­ing at you, about ru­in­ing your clothes, about catch­ing a cold. But in the mo­ment, that voice gives way to the ex­cite­ment, the thrill, the flashes of light­ning, the crashes of thun­der

You’re afraid to move — afraid that one wrong move would make it all stop. Weather is finicky in that way, you say. So you stand there, par­a­lyzed, won­der­ing how long un­til this, too, comes to an end.

flip

And the rain stops. The clouds part, the sun re­veals it­self, and fresh, cool rain makes way for suf­fo­cat­ing hu­mid­ity.

For the storm is gone, as quickly as it came, but a lin­ger­ing taste re­mains of what used to be.

The wet, sticky air clings to your skin, not let­ting go. Unable to let go. Re­fus­ing to let go.

The damp­ness hangs there, sta­tic and un­yield­ing, and you stand just as still as be­fore. You ask out loud, “Where do I go now?”

But the only re­sponse is the sound of wa­ter droplets drip­ping off your shirt.