The Storm

the sky over Jesus Green is one big hangover, black and bloated, hanging there like a drunk who won’t leave the bar. it’s waiting, holding, ready to let it all go in one long miserable rush.

then it starts.

I look up through the shitty streetlight with a sign dangling off it — faulty, please report — like anybody gives enough of a fuck to call it in. the pole stands there next to a fat plum tree, both useless against what’s coming.

the rain hits like a fistful of nails.

slams into my face so hard it feels personal. little moths, drunk on the light, powder-winged idiots, spin in that sick orange glow, getting smashed by drops the size of pound coins. they’re looking for somewhere to crawl into and die dry, just like me.

the leaves take the beating better than I do. big drops explode on them; veins lit from underneath like a torch held to a hand. water bounces, breaks into mist, drifts down soft, lands on my eyelids, my cheeks, runs into my mouth tasting of dirt and city.

and there I am, alone, naturally.

standing in the middle of this biblical piss-storm thinking about South Africa, because even soaked to the bone in Cambridge the mind drags you back to the one place that kicked your teeth in harder than the rain ever could.

rain hammers the skull,
hangover’s fog lifts in sheets,
goddamn wet alarm.