deluge

the rain doesn’t fall so much as surround me,

a constant presence pressing against my skin,

soaking through denim, through hair, through whatever version of myself

i thought i was supposed to carry into the night

*

i don’t turn back

*

there was a time when nights felt smaller than this,

contained by hallways, people,

that all looked the same

clocks that moved too slowly

and the quiet, constant question of who i was allowed to become

*

i remember counting exits all my life

from buildings, from expectations

*

now the street stretches open, shining,

each puddle catching a distorted version of the sky

and i jump and splash and let the water seep into my shoes

not careful, not rehearsed.

*

it’s loud in a way that feels human

voices layered over music, over laughter, over the sounds of other people who made it out too

*

we are all a little soaked, a little unfinished

but it sits lighter on us now

*

someone grabs my arm and shouts my name like they’ve known me forever

and maybe they have, in the way that matters

through shared glances across rooms, through surviving the same long days

through becoming.

*

there’s no moment where it suddenly makes sense

no clean line between then and now

just this—

standing in the backyard with raindrops lingering on my skin like your fingertips

*

realizing that i stayed

that i left

that both can be true at once

*

i am here on purpose.

*

the rain washes away the last of my borrowed edges, leaving only what refused to disappear at my core

*

the crowd is under tarps, trying to keep dry

but i stay where the sky can reach me, my eyes turned towards the stars.