I, Rain

I was there
before breath found her lungs,
tapping on the hospital window like a quiet metronome,
a prelude, a heartbeat,
a rhythm she’d carry into stormier days.

She opened her eyes
and I fell,
soft as a whisper,
soft as a warning.

I watched her childhood
through streaked glass and sidewalk puddles,
watched her run barefoot on bitumen,
mud between her toes and lightening in her laugh.
I wept for her before she knew what grief was.
I sang lullabies on rooftops
when no one else remembered to.

I soaked her school uniform
on the day she realised being different
wasn’t something the world would call beautiful.
She sat in the bathroom stall,
fingers curled around her knees,
and I echoed in the pipes above her
just loud enough to let her know
someone was listening.

I poured through cracked gutters
on the day she lost her first love.
She screamed into me,
spat every why into the wind,
and I swallowed it all.
I did not answer.
But I stayed.
That was my answer.

On the night she tried to leave—
yes, that night—
I pounded the pavement in panic.
I rattled the windowpanes
and broke against the earth
like I could hold her back
from the edge.
She lay in the bathtub,
and I fell from the showerhead,
steady,
as her hands shook.
As her breath stayed.
Just barely.

She did not remember me after that.
But I stayed.
I always do.

She has seen therapists.
And beds she didn’t choose.
And lovers who held her
with hands too hollow.
And nights where I was the only sound
between her ears that didn’t lie.

I’ve heard the manias—
the way her voice would rise to meet the moon,
the plans too big to hold,
the way her feet danced even when the ground
was missing beneath her.
I rained sideways then,
trying to match her chaos.
She laughed at me like we were siblings.
I cried harder.
She didn't notice.

I know the shape of her sadness.
How it presses into her spine,
makes the world tilt.
She doesn’t cry when she's low.
She forgets how.
So I do it for her.

I have been the background
to her poems,
her breakdowns,
her apologies.
I have kissed her shoulders
when no one else dared to.
I have drowned her cigarette butts
and caught the ash on my tongue.

I know her.
Better than the sun ever will.
He only sees her
when she’s ready to be seen.
I see her always.
Raw.
Raging.
Real.

Now—
she walks slower.
She carries herself like a secret
but speaks like a flame.
She stands in me sometimes
on purpose,
face to the sky,
as if to say,
I’m still here.
You didn’t wash me away.

And I never wanted to.

I just wanted to stay.
To witness.
To soften.

I am Rain.
I do not leave when it gets heavy.
I do not stop when you want me to.
I will never ask you to smile
or be smaller.
I will only fall,
again and again,
so you never have to feel
like you are crying alone.