ISSUE: Fall 2023
All the rain in the world
is falling, making
a door you can’t open. On
one side of this door, your
body—you are inside it
now. On
the other side, your other
body, the one
you’ve been trying to enter
since you were born. To find
yourself, you must cross
this threshold of rain. Each
drop whispers, You
will not be this beautiful
forever—one day
you will grow so luminous
this world will not be able to
contain it. As a newborn
you were held close
to your father’s chest, to imprint
his smell upon you. Where did he
go? From here,
you can almost make him out,
the you you wanted to be,
though he’s more a silhouette
than a hand you could
hold. Careful
now, a hole has opened at
your feet, all the rain spiraling
down it, nowhere else
to go, like that chart
on the wall in elementary school
—THE WATER CYCLE—
how it leaps from liquid to gas
to solid to teardrop to
icicle to steam to waterfall to
piss, an arrow
connecting each. Nothing
is ever lost, no one is ever
unlost. Besides, it hurts to have
skin to pour a soul into.
