Permission

The rain came on Tuesday morning,

and by evening I was dialing her number,

my thumb on her contact without warning,

like weather was a written reminder.

I don't call when the days are clear.

I don't reach out in the straight light.

But when the gutters fill and it's drear,

I let myself need her tonight.

She answers on the second ring—

she always does, she always knows.

It's like she's been waiting for this thing,

this permission that only the rain bestows.

Three days of gray, three calls home,

three evenings where I get to be

the one who wants, the one who roams

back toward her voice, back toward needing.

Tomorrow the sky might break clear.

The light will come straight and hard.

I'll go back to that distance, that fear,

back to pretending we're fine, we're scarred.

But tonight the rain keeps coming down.

Tonight I can call her, no shame.

Tonight I'm held in this town—

tonight the sky lets me say her name.