Like every poem, this one begins with a rainy night. The air heavier than the umbrella I am holding.
In the distance, the city burns with a soft indignance, headlights flickering past every unlived dream.
I am alone here. Look, I’ve always hated the rain and this time it’s no different. Glasses smothered
with drops of escapism. When I was a child, mama told me to stay inside the apartment
until the rain stops. Windows scorched with lightning, spilled pieces of myself trickling into the cracks
of the floorboard, full of copper pennies. Now, face this cruel reality: I have always been in the rain.
Already, my bare hands scooping a pile of coins from a wishing well. The new way of living.
Last June, the pharmacy shut down and like that, I am forgotten. Bus stops monochrome,
taxi cabs swift-footed. I reconstruct every roadside into the white space of my eyes. There has never been
any alternative. As if anyone is looking for me. As if like every poem, this one ends with the rain.
Jessica Kim
JessicaKim is a disabled poet from California. A two-time 2021 Pushcart nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Wildness Journal, Diode Poetry Journal, Cosmonauts Avenue, Grain Magazine, Longleaf Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and more. She is the founding editor of The Lumiere Review and her debut chapbook will be published with Animal Heart Press in 2022. Find her at www.jessicakimwrites.weebly.com and @jessiicable on Twitter.
