Rain

How silently the heart

pivots on its hinge

- Jane Hirschfield

The night is full of sighs. Doleful, longing.

The darkness stretches on for miles and hearts shudder at the unknowns lurking in the shadows: betrayal, fear, anguish, sorrow. A question is tossed into the night: What are you doing tonight, Love? It boomerangs into an answer that tortures the mind, like so.

Lamps stay on in a paltry number of houses where Insomniacs go about their day, where lovers wonder about tomorrow, where the brokenhearted lie awake, weeping in silence, shivering in the aftermaths of rain.

Unwritten letters get sent out into the void, transmitted by cold air--messages that hardly reach those they are meant for, things that remain unsaid even as the sender hopes they had not remained unsaid until it was too late. And so the heart becomes a lonely prowler.

Tomorrow's weather forecast promises more rain, more gloom. The sleeping remain sleeping; those awake toss and turn in unrealized dreams of loss and regret, praying for morning to come, and yet wishing it would not.

Raindrops start to knock on doors and windows. Soon, the rain falls in sheets, murmuring litanies.