Best Poems Written by Claudia Conaway

I Could Never Be the Rain

My life started with rain,
the steady stream of drops,
hitting the trees gently
and ending its descent to our world
on the wet pavement.
I am on the sidewalk, 
sheltered by a makeshift roof and 
a border of trees.
The cars beyond me toss the tears of the sky
off themselves, the wheels swerve and then steady.

Then a bell chimes,
crisp and song-like,
first slow and steady rhythms,
then a playful tune to celebrate the rain’s arrival.
The rain, the bells-
one does not cancel the other out, but rather coincide with the other.
A perfect harmony that the human heart will never experience but only watch.

Sweet, sweet cinnamon in a soy satin river,
frothy and smooth- it warms my lips before finding solace
in my esophagus.
The rain is cold, the coffee is hot, my breath belongs to the rain.

Am I an alien, unwelcome to the rain’s domain? 
The rain is a cool drink to the plants, to the trees
but it is a nuisance to us,
it is a plaything for us-
we hide from it and splash in it, pretend it falls just for us,
and ignore the cries of it's true child - nature.
We laugh at nature with booming, passionate voices
and we trample its peace.
rain is nature’s drink of life.
we cannot stop the rain, but the rain will always stop us.

still-
I sit here and write these words and hear those bells and taste the cinnamon dew
and I am human.
My insatiable human lips will never feel the peace of grass drinking its morning brew,
but I do find myself here, feeling all the shades of blue the sky has ever been,
and I am falling in love with the rain.
We humans always do that. Love is our prize choice of dagger.
So we are in love with the rain and we ask:
When will the rain love me back?
When will it fall just for me?
So the rain falls 
and the grass grows
and our bellies grow crude
but we still ask for more more more
and the rain asks for nothing.
It sends its blossoms and petals down to us,
it pumps the blood into our veins,
onto our vines,
and then, it is silent.
It asks for nothing, but I wonder
does It want me to look
or to look away?
Does the rain want me to notice it and to love it in the unrequited way I always do
or does the rain want me to let it be?
Does it think me a monster, an alien
like I think of my skin to me?

I believe that the rain wants not,
asks not,
begs not,

and in that, I could never be the rain.

now I am inside, hidden from the rain
like a child in the womb, momentarily blind
and deaf to the pain that makes the world real.
That trickle of raindrops is now a 
heavy, consistent, foreboding heat of voices-
human voices that sound like mine and that don’t sound like mine,
all invading the stream of consciousness that the rain gave birth to.
In here, I cannot breathe, I cannot think-
I am being coerced into the suffocating fire of voices, all playing with emotions but devoid of them.
The rain is the eye 
and the shelter is the mouth,
always talking but never seeing.
The hell of human condition does not end like the rain,
we ask for more and more and more, 
more than God himself thinks is best for us.

This is the human condition- a fire that desperately wants to touch the rain-
we are put out by our own choice.

But oh! The pleasure of that human voice!
The longing moans of our anguish,
the desperation in our cries of please please love me!
Every single word and every single wall we build
to keep the rain out
is saying please please break in,
love me like I love the rain,
love me like I’m scared to,
because I am terrified of love and 
I am void of you.
I have always been alone,
and I let the rain wash you away,
and now I am a rock-
like the songwriters say.
But the rock never speaks to the rain
it never says please please love me

and in that, I can never be the rock

because I love the rain and I love the touch of human distraction,
like veins bursting out from the skin
I am human and always will be,  
I wish the rain was desperate like me
and I wish the rock would beg for me.

Copyright © Claudia Conaway | Year Posted 2015