Rain.

All of the sounds of the world have diminished to a whisper. Summers are just as cold as winters as far as my heart is concerned. I'm sitting on the porch, soaked to the bone from April rainwater, listening to the thunder and watching for streaks in the sky and all that I want is for something to define the moment. I'm shaking in my clothes yet I refuse to go inside. I'm waiting for something or someone to come bursting out of the sky.

Such a miraculous thing, but I'm drawing up conclusions and placing my hope in places that it doesn't belong. I am vulnerable. I am frightened. And as my body fights with all it has to keep this cold away, I feel nothing. I am nothing.

So I put my hands in my pockets, hoping that this will temporarily keep my hands a little warmer and I find a folded up note that I had written for a love-interest. It soaked though. None of the words on it are distinguishable anymore and my hands are all black and blue. Great.

It pours down harder. I'm a few steps away from the door but still I refuse.

I pull out a box of cigarettes and try to light one up with my back to the rain. Success, but it doesn't last long. Holding the soaken cigarette between my fingers I realize this is a metaphor for myself, and I look at it for a while before walking out to the road and throwing it into the street. I walk back, I sit down. I give up.

I give up. I fucking give up!

So I lay flat on my back and look up to the black clouds. There's no hope in finding what I'm looking for so I lay on my back and just accept death as it pours down on me. If I survive this flood, I'll still be left with lungs full of water. Pneumoniatic. Wheezing when I breathe, hardly able to contain the oxygen that I inhale.

If the sun breaks through, I'm already diseased. There is an expiration date on me, and it's a lot sooner than most of you. Because I put myself out there in the cold and found nothing but disease. I found nothing but emptiness.