Midnight Rain…

A little bit of a dark musing…

***

It’s always raining when I think about running to you. It must be a product of my eager and over-active imagination. But it’s always raining. As though my external environment might somehow be a manifestation of my emotional turmoil.

I think about forgetting everything else ever existed and just walking out the door. Turning my back on everything.

Leaving with nothing.

The relief I feel when I hear the latch of the door click shut on my miserable situation is almost the kind of relief you feel when you can breathe again. It feels like air conditioning on a 110 degree day with 95 percent humidity. It feels like weights sliding off of my shoulders and chest. The relief itself is almost overwhelming.

And then I start walking. And I know that somehow, if I can only get to you, everything might magically be better.

It’s always raining, and it’s raining hard. Drops falling so hard and fast, from a dense grey sky, that it almost looks like sheets, separating me from the rest of the world. I can see the grey sky even at night. The rain seems to have its own peculiar light.

My tenuous self control has snapped and I am finally done. I am finally free from all of the shackles. Finally somehow liberated from all that kept me encumbered and imprisoned by my own shortcomings and fears. In that first moment when I step out into the rain and I feel it begin to wash away all the thoughts of who I should have been, and what I was supposed to become, I know that only one thing could complete this experience for me. There is only one place I want to be, and one person that I want to be with.

I set off at a run. My muscles ache and burn a bit, because I seem to be perpetually out of shape. It feels like all too soon, I’m beginning to feel winded, but it’s like my body refuses to be chained again by anything so soon after it has broken free of its bonds, and I remind myself to take even breaths as I run. Almost instantly, the burn starts to fade. I set a punishing pace, and it seems appropriate. I am always punishing myself.

With each quick stride, my arms and hands sting. Tiny cuts absorb the rain water. You see, I have scars. Loads of them. When I am angry, or in despair, I take it out on myself. I cut through the skin until I shed blood, my mind clouded by an unbearable haze of negativity that I just can’t seem to shake.

They lied to me. The first cut isn’t always the deepest. Somedays it seems like it takes so long to draw blood, I wonder if I have any running through my veins at all. But this is different. It was almost like my body knew I was trying to break free. Blood ran almost immediately. Making thin roads and pathways down my arms. Dripping onto my fingers until I could paint designs around the house.

But the rain washes it all away. I’ve told myself time and again that I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve to have that safe place to run to unload. You don’t deserve my scars and my negativity in your life. I’ve told myself again and again that you deserve sunshine and warmth. Because you are the epitome of both.

But it doesn’t matter when the rain washes it all away. It’s almost as if my scars don’t exist. As if, maybe I’m not quite as fucked up as I am. I’ve kept myself at bay constantly telling myself the story that I deserve to be alone because of how messed up I am. But tonight, all my stalling tactics fail. And I’m running. To you.

Somehow, I’ve stopped thinking. I’ve quit rationalizing, and for one moment I am being completely and totally selfish. Somehow, I can’t wait to see your face when I burst into wherever you are, wrap you up in my arms and hold you until neither of us can breathe.

Because somehow, the way you look at me…heals my soul. The things you say to me make me believe that there is a better version of me waiting to be uncovered. The sound of your voice makes me want to make it through the rough patches to hear its warmth again. The touch of your skin gives me something to strive toward. I find myself just trying to figure out how to get more of a fix that I didn’t even know existed. For years, I considered myself broken. I knew it. And I didn’t want o be fixed. I wanted to stay right where I was. What was the point in fixing the problem when I was damaged goods and unfit to be loved.

And then you came and everything turned completely upside down. But, I’ve been broken so long that it feels like the new normal. I don’t know how to step into a new skin, unmarked by my anger and self hatred. Untouched by the raging thoughts that roll through me and convince me that I must be a harsh person if my past relationships have failed as badly as they have. I don’t know how to look at a face free from the haunted look in my eyes. The look that says that I have seen too much. Weathered too many storms. I don’t know the girl with the smile that reaches her eyes.

But you do.

And somehow you introduced her to me. And now…I’m not entirely sure… but I think I want to bring her into my life. Integrate our paths together until they become indistinguishable from one another. I want to do it because you deserve better. You don’t really deserve all of my baggage. And you don’t deserve for someone to look at you like maybe you’re a doctor with the cure for their intense ailment.

You deserve for someone to look at you with fire and passion. Free from fear and anger. Free from a lingering uncertainty about who they are and the body that they inhabit. In a way, you deserve the girl running to you through the rain. The one who dances through the storm for you. The one who looks wiped clean from the purifying water of the rain. The one who looks fresh, and new. You deserve the girl who doesn’t look anything like me.

Because what you make me feel

is so incredible it makes me feel new. And good. And fixed. And it’s easy. And wonderful. And it feels real. So I want to give you the person that you think I can be.

I want to give you that girl you deserve.

If only I could figure out who you are…