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Poetry: Of people and the rain
When it rains, the clock goes underwater and hours break.
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When it rains, the clock goes underwater and hours break. (Shutterstock/File)
The seconds refuse to tock
till this all comes to a stop.
The earth in puddles and flood;
a story and billions
that could not be spoke.
When the drizzling starts,
the tires cease to a halt —
but the feet of the tired
continue to run.
A boy walks with a guitar
to a home beneath
the city streets
while his father sells cigars
and fires put out by tears
as well as the rich’s
disregardful greed.
When the thunder starts to roar,
the swings no longer soar.
The ball sits alone;
play time is no more.
When the luminescence ends,
the dawn of a mourning begins.
A woman with hair
the color of clouds
sought the ashes of loss
in a horizon of gray,
while a girl sits with cold hands
in a drowning world that
she could not understand.
When the ocean starts to pour,
a couple stops by to embrace.
Then a sole woman, an umbrella — a lover and their dirty promises
slip past her fingers
like rain circling a drain.
When it rains,
the clock goes underwater
and hours break.
I don’t know
if I am the man
who hears the droplets
knock on his window
to offer him contemplation,
for I might be the child
locked in their room
growing a fond melancholy
for the blue weather
as the virginity of my innocence
is threatened to disappear.
I know
that the light
will give birth
to a new bright sky —
but I don’t know,
it feels like a someday
so far away
does it not?
I know I do not know
when time will come and go,
but for now
I am within a state of sadness
and a little bit of calm.
I feel, for the first time in a while
my facades and my masks
washed off from my flesh
and I feel human
with incomprehensible emotions
yet again.
I am a person
and billions who cannot speak
of why they like or dislike the rain — and I feel like this may last
for one whole season
or perhaps far longer than a year.
***
Andrieta R.A. is a student at UPH College. She was among the first batch of participants of “The Novel,” a creative writing course held by The Jakarta Post Writing Center. For more info go to tjpcreativewriting.com
