Q

It used to be a private affar: the almost tangible weight of wetness and the inescapable racket even an amniotic fort of blankets cannot keep away.

When the clouds start to crowd I’d feel myself sink – the ground I’m on slowly submerge while everyone else stays level.

Then I’d hold my breath until the sun is back out again.

When we started going out, I watched him watch me whenever the ground ate me, and took in his confused concern. It made me almost embarrassed of my passive yielding to the damp, greedy earth.

“You get in such bad moods when it rains.”

“I do?” (I know.)

“Yeah, it gets really bad sometimes.”

“Oh. I hate the rain.”

He liked the rain, he told me. Especially when it rains when he sleeps. Everyone loves the rain when they sleep. It’s the first world’s giant cradle, the sheltered modern man’s fuck you to nature on it’s hunt for vengeance.

My rain dissolves concrete and metal and seeps right through me, into me.

*

On his bed, in the lull between words, we lay watching the congregation of clouds both outside and inside me. “You know… you’re making me hate the rain too.”

I didn’t reply, because there was nothing to say. But this time as I descended into hibernation I felt him grip my hand a little harder and didn’t let go.