Levee

He said it was raining like it was a prayer.

I said it was raining like it was a fact.

We fucked with the window open so he could believe in something.

I let him. I didn’t interrupt when he closed his eyes mid-chorus

like the thunder was the voice of a god he used to love.

I only ever believed in weather.

In the wet.

In the way his mouth filled with my name and spilled it—

like he was rinsing the sin off before he swallowed it.

I didn’t speak in tongues.

I used to think storms meant something.

Then I just counted the seconds between flash and fracture.

He knelt. I didn’t.

He said the rain reminded him of church.

I said the rain reminded me I had a body.

I said the rain got in every time he left the window open,

and he laughed like he knew what I was really talking about.

He thought I was saving him.

I thought he was leaking god all over my sheets.

The rain didn’t stop.

Neither did we.

He still left the window open.

I didn’t bother closing it.

The wet was inside then. I let it soak.

That wasn’t salvation.

It was flood.