Member-only story
Rains
Knowing Don’t Save You
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There are times you expect things to happen. You brace yourself, like a 5-year-old waiting to be told he isn’t getting any presents for Christmas, counting the seconds until it undoes you. You prepare your mind because you know exactly how it’ll come—yet when it does, it still breaks you. It’s like knowing the rain’s coming, seeing the gray crawl over the sky, hearing the wind's warning, but still drowning when it falls. The water doesn’t care that you saw it coming. It fills your lungs anyway.
I stood at my balcony today, the cold metal railing biting into my palms, and I thought about all the times I’ve felt tired of living. I looked down at the street below — cars crawled like ants; people moved with purpose I couldn’t borrow. The air smelled of wet concrete and exhaust.
I remember the first time I felt it—really felt it. I was sixteen, sitting on my bed, staring at a crack in the wall that looked like a river nobody else could see. My brother was laughing in the next room, loud and alive, and I hated that he could still find air when I was choking on nothing. I wanted to claw my way out of my skin that day, but instead I just sat there. Heavy. Telling myself it’d pass. It always passed. Until it didn’t.
