Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
*second person narrative: a reflection.
After the longest time, it is finally raining. You kind of missed this, the rain reminds you of someone.
We are in the middle of summer, the heat is almost unbearable, the sun shines in all its glory, the air is warm and humid... Yet, the breeze was speaking a different tale for a week now — if you remember correctly, it was ever since Ramadhan started.
Yet, tonight it sounds like the sea itself has risen above our heads, like the clouds breaking apart into light, thunder and cold droplets is a personal war. Like it wants to awaken memories that have gathered dust, and pluck out a du'a from a restless heart. Like the sky is telling you "I am reminding you how much you need to utter those words that can change your destiny."
Somehow, you are standing in a realm that allows you to look at your life. And you see that it has many empty spaces, you can see them all — some who have left, some you've abandoned, some who have died. Yet they've all left a little mark on your life, a little dent in time where you wished they would stay forever.
Some are even friends who have broken your heart enough that you still cry about it every time they cross your mind — hoping, wishing and praying that they are alright, even though they've trampled on every seed of goodness you had hid for them in your heart.
And you realise, time has never healed things. It just cleverly covers them, makes you believe it is less important. But if you look inside yourself, in your life, like how you are right now in this imaginary realm, you realise that things still sting your heart — perhaps you've never fully forgiven yourself yet. Or them.
And it's okay, the rain tells you, slowly drenching you in cold peace. Some things just don't have solutions, some assumptions people have made about you have taken hold of them so tightly that they cannot see the real you. They can't see that you deserve to be remembered by your better self, because there cannot be an ordinary human who hasn't made mistakes.
You wish there was a way to escape this madness we call "life", you wish the previous souls you have lost could somehow bend time to meet you again — maybe 40, 50, 60 years later. Maybe that one friend you cherished so dearly would recognise you across the street one day, and be genuinely pleased to meet you. Perhaps you would laugh and lament over the time you've lost. Because goodness, this aching heart of yours had never wanted to lose that friend.
What you needed was someone (or something) to see your grief, and the rain arrived accordingly. ❤️
(Have you cried for a friend? I am kinda proud to say I have. What a good friend she was. I miss her.)
