Since You’ve Gone By Katy Reagan
2 months, 17 days, 15 hours, and 35 minutes since you’ve gone, and it has rained nearly every day. Sometimes it only sprinkles while the sun still shines. The devil’s beatin’ his wife, as they say. Sometimes the clouds move in slowly until they overcome the sun and the world goes gray, just for a little while, before the rain ends and the day returns to normal. Then sometimes it downpours. The rain becomes white noise that doesn’t cease, with thunder and strikes of lightning and a tornado watch alert on my phone. Sometimes it goes on for days, where the world is only bleak and gray and hurting and I feel its pain. It hasn’t happened every day since you’ve gone, but it has been the majority, and it has been so much more than before you left. I believe in coincidences, but this doesn’t feel like one. At least a few days out of the week, it waits to rain until 3 pm. Only a little shower before the sun returns and the ground dries. On these days, I see you. I see your smile peeking down through the clouds. You taunt us, tease us. You know we’ll know. In Florida, it rains every day at 3 pm. It might last a while, or it might only be a minute, but you can set your watch to it, you always told us when talking about where you grew up, your first home. Now my home copies yours. Since you’ve gone, it has rained nearly every day. It comes in waves, sometimes crashing down and taking everything with it, other times just a peek into what is held in. I see this, and I know the truth. The world mourns with us.
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