Smoke Break

Rain through my hair and over my face and in my clothes and the streets. The weather is the weather and I can only move through it. The grass is greener. The world hums in dull blues and grays and browns and I sit on my porch and try to keep my cigarette dry. The lawn chair I am sitting on is soaked and my jeans are now. I watch the rain spatter off of the road. A lovely static and hushed chaos in my ears. A gloss over everything. A drowning earth, an indifferent earth. An indifferent man. As much as I can.

I pull off of the cigarette. Inside the house I'm expected to be someone else. It's expected and I comply. I fulfill the role and I fulfill it well. I need this soaked moment. This poisoned breath. Out here, on the porch, in the rain, my mind wanders. I dream of what if's and what might have been's and what will never be's.

I pull off of the cigarette. I thought this would be different. I thought I was supposed to be something else. The white noise settles in my chest and I close my eyes. I'm a poet. I don't write poetry. I don't rhyme, or balance, or starve, but I am a poet. I long. My heart sings softly. Unheard, but singing none the less. I pull off of the cigarette and watch as a drop of water hits the paper and the white turns gray and I can see the tobacco through it and I hide the cigarette again cupped in my hand. It's almost gone now anyway and I imagine what life would be like if I could speak. If I could say these things. If I knew what these things were or what they meant or what they really meant and maybe I'm a fool.

A heart won't sink if it won't rise, I think and regret thinking it. I stand and flick the cigarette out into the road. I feel my wet shirt press against my back and I take in the streams down the road and the sound, the beautiful endless patter, and the color of the world and the fact that, truly, none of it matters at all and I go inside.