Some days I pray only
for hard rain.
Rain to wash away the streets. Hot rain until I bleed heat underneath my fingernails,
feel the anguish inside me like matchsticks struck upon the bare hands
of lost polaroid time.
I pray for hard rain to penetrate the wild fire in my bones.
On these days, we are now not speaking. On these days we are now sipping whiskey as the setting orange sun splits the trees like razors through electric wire.
Why am I different, why is this different, why am I always in the dark when you find me?
There are clouds of gray smoke affixed to my lungs
from swallowing my tears too soon. The rain begins now falling up, the world turns to ashes now falling down
upon wide open red fields. Is this why we came?
You look through me and climb through the gaps, my heart is a broken window.
Is this all there is?
I gaze back at you but do not dare expel the words. Cracks in the ceiling were cracks all along, floorboards shifting like the ocean tide and I am now not
standing.
Is this the best you can do?
As night rolls into morning fog, I am distracted: what about the boats we’ve untied, they are now burning, they are now never coming back.
You tell me it was me and I am ashamed because I cannot remember. I cannot seem to touch the memories which cloud behind the mind.
Screens are now movies, screens are now backdoors in the summertime, screens are now fireflies on brown sticks trapped in jars. Screens are now slamming, screens are now screams.
Why can’t love take it all back
when love can climb the walls
in the rain?
Maybe she does
but you don’t see she cries like I do.
.
.
Allison Marie Conway 