The Windowpane of Forgotten Rain

It drips again—

that soft patter

on the old windowpane

that once watched me grow,

facing out to fields

that swallowed my secrets whole.

I sit where I always did,

a book in my lap,

but no words on the page.

Only the hum of forgotten rain

and the ghost of my younger self

pressed to the glass,

tracing dreams in condensation

like maps to lives I never lived.

The rain never asked questions.

It just fell—

gentle, relentless,

like a lullaby

for the grief I didn’t understand.

My mother’s voice

once echoed in this room,

sweet and sure,

simmering with the scent

of chamomile and old vinyl records.

Now, only the kettle hisses,

a poor imitation

of warmth that left with her laughter.

That window held it all—

the first kiss I watched bloom

beneath storm clouds and garden lights,

the argument that shattered

like lightning across his face,

the night I promised myself

I’d leave this town

before I became just another

story never told.

But I stayed.

And so did the window.

And so did the rain.

They say the past dries up eventually—

but here it is,

sliding down the glass,

carving streaks in the dust

of a life half-spoken.

Sometimes, I press my forehead to the pane,

and it’s like leaning

into an old friend’s silence.

It doesn’t comfort.

It doesn’t heal.

But it stays.

That, somehow, is enough.

The rain outside forgets.

But the window remembers