When she hugs me goodbye I count the seconds between the thunder and the clap, glad I didn’t hold my breath. I don’t know when it started raining. I think it could have always been this way. Drizzle drowning the world in increments, moisture in the bones, deterioration sinking in. Sometimes the promise in the clouds is the worst. Mindfully, I romance drier days, though things were brittle then, they carried the spark of kindling, the threat of fire as purpose brushed against potential in whispered movements begging to be ignited. Dampened now, it looks like rain all week.
The rain keeps falling like a heavenly suicide club, so eager that each droplet barely leaves space for individuality, all the water in the world condensed into a sheet, flagellating itself against the ground. Liquid corpses pool in immortality below my deck, their moaning susurrations drowned beneath the familial patter-splash drumming of the departed. I watch with envy while the water grows, puddles of kismet formed into a body of one mind denied. I’m fascinated by their solidarity and long to acquiesce. I lay myself upon the ground and stare into the clouds, wondering what evaporation feels like.
Perched above me, knees braced against the outsides of my thighs, she sighs. I knead the ball of her foot with my thumb, my fingers splayed between her toes. The smell of rain and desert sage couch themselves around us in the stillness. I smile at her with the corner of my mouth and she steals it with a kiss. The pulse quickens in my neck. Steadying herself on my chest with one outstretched hand, like a traffic warden’s warning, she tames a drift of hair. I watch her hard eyes soften under the gypsy lights. ‘Fuck,’ she sighs.
A Few Short Words 