Voices rise above the rain sporadically, wherever there are people, saying how much it is needed - a constant prayer of thanks for this rain on the lips of the people. I walk further, faster into the dark trying to find my way to a part of the city I know so I can find my way back home. The rain pounds down steadily, icy cold needling through my skin into my bones; my tank-top was a poor choice this morning.
I splash through puddle after puddle, the city taking me in as it always has, the glare of headlights on the glass of office buildings embracing me while I think too much, too fast, circling around much of the same thoughts I always do. I’m waterlogged, I should have worn the new boots, not the ones that have a hole in the toe and thinning soles. My mind turns darker and darker the farther and farther I walk, my bangs dripping water into my eyes; everything blurs out of focus, the water from my bangs is filled with remnants of purple dye and it stings.
Everything feels twisted in the dark, but I’ve found the corner of Second and Broadway and my heart jumps as I realize there really is no other place in the world for me but here, even at its worst. Even in drought at ninety degrees and even now in pouring, ice cold rain. I feel as open and raw as I do when I realized this for the first time, but now it matters more to me somehow. It means I’ll do more to stay, to live, to thrive for this.