When I Was Young in the Rain
By Violet Niting


When I was young in the rain, I sang for it to go away, but secretly hoped it wouldn’t. I wanted to watch it patter on the windows forever, urging the drops of water to connect so they could stream down the glass. When they reached the bottom, I waited patiently for another large drop to come, so I could help it go down as well. Some raindrops were slower than others, but they all got down in the end.

When I was young in the rain, I fell asleep to the patter on the rooftops, to the clouds in the sky that hid away the sun, soaking the world in a calm darkness.

When I was young in the rain, I always wanted to go out in it and sing. Not dance, just sing a tuneless song as I walked through the saturated world, watching as the rain washed away all the stains of the earth, leaving me protected beneath my yellow umbrella.

The lightning never scared me. It was always a beautiful danger, alighting upon mountains too far away to be real. When I was young in the rain, I closed my umbrella and allowed the rain to soak through my jacket in all of its subtle beauty. As I grow up in the rain, I watch for lightning, as intrigued by it now as I was back then.