Sometimes I think about 

what would’ve happened if I stayed in the rain. 

If I didn’t run for safety under an awning- went inside, locked the door,

and swore to 

never come out. 

The water was sweet in my magnanimous mouth, 

dissolving into stardust and dancing on the tip of my tongue. 

I think about how the familiar pitter-patter printed on my skin 

ever so gently

ripples of so-called remedy healing my hurt when really 

it created more. 

Masking the lying as living,

the rain seemed so pretty,

put-together puddles of reflected streetlights screaming garbled siren songs.

It was music to my ears as I grasped dried daffodils,

damp and dreary from the falling oceanic sky.

I wonder what would have became of the rain and I. 

If I didn’t go when I did.

Maybe the cold would’ve encased my lungs and the pain would have swallowed me whole.

Maybe I would’ve learned how to live with the aftertaste of stardust that bleeds 

like burnt black licorice.

Maybe I would’ve continued on with the rain being my favorite weather. No matter if it

cast colds, stole serenity, and left me cradling my completely dead daffodils. 

But the world only leaves maybes in my warm dry bedroom.

Looking out to hear the same pitter-patter polluting streetlights and siren songs

that were really serpents screeching. 

The rain is so close, a piece of drywall or glass separating us, yet walking forward three steps seems like

swimming upwards in a sea of clouds- impossible. 

So here I stay, sitting by the heat of my fireplace soaking up the smell of freshly cut flowers. 

But on the nights I miss the showers, 

samples of memory seeping into my damp pores

I unlock the door and sit underneath the awning

remembering how lovely the rain used to be.