Cumulonimbus

On rainy days, sadness seeps through me. It loosens dirt as it flows, and it makes hardened ground soft.

On rainy days, I am broken. Wounded, I burrow into a blanket of grey, encircle myself in my own arms, lower my head to my chest, and do not move. There I lie still, allowing my tears, those soft droplets, to accumulate within me, and huddle beneath the cumulonimbus covers.

On rainy days, I do not sleep. I listen, instead, to the sound of a million felted hammers upon the corrugations overhead. The rain congregates in small rivulets that drip from my gutterless roof onto the soft new leaves of deciduous trees. I hear a symphony of taps and trickles, and it is a sound so familiar to me - from a time in utero, perhaps - that it is as much feeling as sound. The many sounds of falling water resonate with me and within me.

On rainy days, I rise from my bed, healed, but not renewed. The world is bathed in pale light. A drop of rain slides down a blade of grass.