Dear Rain

Dear Rain,

Long years ago, not long enough to escape my memory, my mother told me that you cleanse the earth of its sadness. That you carry magical spirits that heal souls. That you are the messenger between the yearnings of the sky and aspirations of the earth, and the musings of the humans stuck in the middle. Even now, when I see raindrops running after each other on windowpanes, I cannot help but wonder if it is true.

At the age of six, looking out of the window, stretching out my little hand and watching your droplets collecting in my palm, too beautiful to understand. you have always been power outages on august nights, and how can I forget that cardamom tea and antakshari with siblings, with the aid of candle lights. Just peaceful evenings with Warm laughter and no fear of lightning or thunder noise, somewhere in mumma’s lap in our old house that was often filled, with you and anecdotes and background with old songs in my father's voice.

It genuinely surprises me that you chose to stick around despite having seen the ugliest side of me, & then, calling it acceptance. I do not see how you possibly could adore me for the time you did, despite knowing that my brain spells ‘insecurities’ faster than your name. I know I must have been so hard to love. I know it because I have tried it and failed every single time.

Thank you for seeing a drizzle where I saw a thunderstorm, for choosing to silence the noise inside my fucking brain at nights when the moonlight was perfect for you to dream good dreams, for repeating that you do love me, that you won’t leave my side, that I am what makes you happy, that this love story isn’t a eulogy. Thank you, for hurting when I hurt, and then coming over the next morning to nurse my wounds while I scrape away yours.

This mind doesn’t make sense to me, but your fingertips on my eyebrows? Your fingertips on my eyebrows help my poems find words. Dear, you have loved me so beautifully; it makes me cry myself to sleep at nights. And sometimes, when I feel hot, all I do is your name melt on my tongue. You have been my winter all along.

So do me a favour. Visit that girl who lives down the street, three blocks away from my house. I have seen her too many times, looking towards the sky with outstretched arms. I do not know her story. I only see her sometimes in the park, jumping with that red basketball alone. I think she needs a friend.

Will you please gently shake hands with her? Fall on to her palm and stay there for a while? Will you come with the breeze and listen to her fears? Will you take time out of your busy schedule, and make her feel like you exist, only for her? Will you narrate to her the fables that her father used to? Will you please continue to pour, as she sleeps, to overpower the silence of her house?

And will you please tell her, that a boy lives, three blocks away from her house, who'd love to join her for a game or two?