Running in the Rain - poetry

[WickedCadrach]

It's not quite 5 AM and
The rain is through waiting.
Only a mile in, I don't even slow.
I'll be soaked, more than usual. It's fine.
I drink a liter before I even lace my shoes,
And feeling every inch of clothing
Pasted to my body by sweat is not uncomfortable.
Not to me. To you maybe. 
You'd prefer I came out of the box like this,
No evidence of what it costs. Me too, honestly,
But only sometimes. 
The feeling of my burning muscle
Steaming in cool rain, makes me remember I came
From mud. From swamp. From survivors 
Of fangs in the millennial darkness of naked epochs.
I don't eat meat. 
I can't bear suffering. 
But I can smell it. And the ghosts inside me remember.
I am a creature 
Running in the rain. 

It's not the first time that I've thought 
About throwing off my bra. Peeling my shorts
Off my heated thighs. Running
Sky-clad.
In the rain we have no more secrets. 
Everything is shown. 
Dignity is washed off first. 
And in the hypnotic rhythm of the run,
In the mud and new-born puddles soaking your socks,
Thoughts rise like parish graves in a hurricane. 

The night before, I stared into a page full of lies.
Fifty siblings lined up behind it. My eyes glistened
Like the vodka in my hand. 
CTRL+A, DEL

CTRL+Z
Wince and down the vodka. Light a cigarette and walk away
Before my pen carves another line into the pressboard desk 
That's almost as scarred as me.
Almost as cheap as me. 
I wonder if it will rain overnight. 

It didn't.
It waited for me
A mile outside my door. 
Focus on breathing.
Three in. Two out.
Keep time with your steps. 

A mottled, dishwater grey cat is looking at me, 
Maybe wondering what I'm running from,
What I'm doing in the rain. If I'm here for her.
I think she wants to follow me.
Turning her head, she lifts a paw in a hesitant half-step.
She's considering if I'm what she's looking for. 
Food. Companionship.
Some way out of the rain, maybe. 
There are no secrets in the rain, even for cats. 
I decide that if she follows me, I'll let her inside—
And deal with the growls and the hissing and
The jealous suspicion of the two in my bedroom who have forgotten
What it is to be outside in the storm.
A memory bubbles up
Of sitting under a bridge,
Sharing a cigarette while the rain fell and she told me
She got a gun.
Because he still comes into her room at night.
And I feel ashamed because I was thinking about her lip gloss
And her lips. 
And my jealousy of her tits that wasn't only jealousy.
Three in. Two out. 
The cat doesn't follow me.
She doesn't need me. She has her claws, and 
She'll take her chances, 
Curled under a bush until the sun rises. 

I take my shoes off at the door.
Socks too. 
I hold my ankle and pull it to my spine,
Dripping onto the doormat,
Hoping the cat is ok as thunder arrives. And
I wonder if I should go back out to look for her. 
Sometimes we only get one chance. 
Sometimes we can only pray we see her again
In daylight.

I'm lingering, 
A little waterfall trailing off my elbow onto the carpet. 
You ask me what's wrong,
And I see how I must look to you,
Even with the muddling speckles of water on my glasses.
Curls tangled and plastered against my scalp,
Dripping like I'm fresh from a shower and 
Fidgeting on one foot like a pale, anxious flamingo.
And that's all you'll ever see. 
You don't look at me the way they do at the bars,
Sipping your coffee in a fluffy robe that reminds me
Of how the rain and sweat is chilling on my skin and
Makes me wish I could be warm in there as well. 

I smile and shake my head.
I joke about the rain waiting for me, and
You put your hand on my arm,
Laughing back as you offer to pour me some coffee. 
The touch is chaste in all the ways I'm not, and
Shame boils inside, as I know I can't put my hands on you
The same way. 
I play it off as awkwardness. 
Maybe it is. 
Maybe the woman is still too much
The gangly girl on the soccer team
Who stiffens like she's been stabbed when a hug comes too swift.
Maybe I'm still the girl on the theater catwalk
Who leans too close, grabs too fast, and kisses too hard
Because keeping her body to herself
Feels like a kind of suicide. 
Maybe I'm the cat too,
Sleeping in the rain, because its safer than misunderstanding—
Safer than wondering if she'll think of me at all
When she's drifted out the other side of my life. 

You ask how the book is coming, 
And I offer to make you breakfast. 
I'm not hungry. 
Thunder growls, 
And I worry about the cat.