Bring Down the Rain

I like the rain. I love rainy nights especially.



Not the rampaging kind of downpour but the steady, melancholic falling.



Something about the rain comforts me and scares me at the same time.



How the drops of water insinuate themselves onto every surface, into every crack and nook is both an embrace and an intrusion.



As we cower under our umbrellas, hide under the relative safety of our roofs, the rain compels us to admit how powerless and vulnerable we really are.

And when I look across to the next person and see the thick strands of liquid invading the space between me and everyone else, I am reminded of the distance pulling us all from each other.




I am reminded that I am held together by my skin, the point where I end and the rest of the world begins.





But in its dark, nostalgic rhythm, the rain struggles to speak to us.

Of a forgotten secret whispered right before that moment we tore out of the womb:

That the distance doesn't matter; that we have the capacity to conquer the space between you and I; the strength to leap over the differences, the pain caused, the damage inflicted. We cannot rip out of our skins and escape from the bounds of the self, but we can always try.

And failing, we can achieve something: Compassion.