"I'm just standing in the rain"

[trentm32]

"I'm just standing in the rain"

"I'm just standing in the rain."
as the words cross my lips,
and I shiver in the cold, I wonder if it's true.
the waves of clear diamonds crashing into me
like tears from God ready to wash it all away

and I wonder why I can't cry
as I lick my cheeks,
and wish I felt the sweet sting of salt
but all I taste is dirty water falling from the sky
baptizing me in mud and sticky clothes,
and shaking hands stretched to the heavens
but reaching only the cold dark

the pale porch-light across the way cries
like a blue light across a bay that I'll never reach,
that will never mean the same as it did when it all began--
in the sunlight, and in the warm nostalgia of youth,
and in the anniversary tears that remind me of the first so long ago
in the crisp dry grass, with streetlights above,
and moths in love with their glow that lights my way

"I'm just standing in the rain."
I say the words aloud again; to no one, to everyone,
to God and the angels and my cold fingers there, all alone
holding pages, leather-bound, as the ink smears
into a sea of dark blue and damp pages--
but I know the ending. A clap of thunder
and I blow the icy smoke that is my breath out in O's--
a happy ending, with smiles and epilogues,
written in ink smeared like blue blood, dripping from my hands