She lies in bed, eyes wide open. The clock says 2:54. She has to be up and running in four hours. Up and ready for her day of school, homework, repeat, school, homework, repeat. The same old schedule, day after day.

She rolls over on her back and listens to the sound of the rain on the roof. Pitter patter pitter patter. The beat is unpredictable and erratic, a little bit like her heartbeat. A poem gathers in her mind, words shifting, ever changing, constantly moving, but never standing still. The raindrops shatter on the roof, a slow steady stream of constant breaking glass.

The window is streaked with tears, and they keep falling. Her breathing is calm and steady, like the shudder of a death-like sleep. She watches the rain spin and dance, blocking out the stars, blocking out the moon, shading the universe from her eyes. The tears of the clouds blink off the lights on the ground and create different stars, ones that don't judge and whisper and point. Ones that laugh and dance and twist in the wind, with a certain kind of beauty that exists just beyond the point of consciousness.

The city rumbles beneath her, a quiet sleeping dragon, with exhaust fumes for fire and skyscrapers for scales. The voices of the people are muffled and hushed under the deafening reverberation of the rain, but you can still hear the disgust in their tone as they hurry along to find shelter. They don’t see what she sees. They don’t see the beauty, they only see the wet, and the cold, and the destructive ways of the wind. They don’t see the freedom, for they can only look so far under the layers and layers darkness. She cannot see them, but the sound of their discomfort sickens her.

She is warm in her bed, comfortable, but still sleep evades her. She likes the sound of the rain, hitting every surface like a tap of the drums. She likes the unpredictability of the clouds, how they fall and slip and catch themselves at the very last second; how they never stop moving. She's in the love with the way the rain can shadow all her problems from her mind, the way she can't think of anything when the pitter patter is drumming in her ears.

It feels like the rain is inside of her, washing her clean. Thundering through her blood and filtering out the dirt and the hate and the anger and the sickening jealousy. It's all she can hear and all she can see, the clouds and the falling drops. It's all she can feel inside of her, and it's all she ever wants to be. Her skin is clear and her blood is saturated and the rain fills her soul with blossoming bliss. She's happy for the first time in a long time, high on the rain and drunk on the rushing, roaring, cacophonous wind. The tip tap on the window pane and the thump thump of her heartbeat coincide like two pieces of a puzzle, fitting perfectly together. She laughs softly, a breath that’s not even audible over the drumline of the rain. There is nothing on her mind but the singing, glorious life of the water that weaves its web over her memory. She cannot remember anything but rain and thunder and the beautiful notion of being alive at last.

The clock clicks to 3:00, but she’s deep under the hypnotism of the storm. Her spell is unbreakable, her eyes glued to the window. It’s chaotic and messy and rude and frightening and lovely. It’s boredom and pain and all the notes in a natural minor scale, slammed together in one dissonant pile of loneliness. She’s happy to say it. She’s lonely. She has no one to turn to, but the rain comforts her like a stroke of her hair. It wraps its cold arms around her in a tight embrace, opening its soul for her tears to climb inside and take coverage. Her heart swells with longing and fear and miserability, but the lightning burns it away like ash in a fire. Crumbling and smoking and seething and slowly, slowly dying. The negativity inside her soul is consumed by the rain, and she is pure once more.