The Room

The rain has not ceased for days.  My hair is plastered against my head.  Rivulets of water stream down my cheeks and catch in my eyelashes.  I peer through the window.  The scene inside is lovely and warm.  Light like honey glows from within, warming my face and drawing an aching from the depths of my heart.

Gentle thunder rumbles overhead.  I shiver.  So long I've been standing outside, waiting to be allowed into the lit room.  As if far away, I hear the music, the laughter.  Sometimes the window is cracked open, just far enough for me to smell the feast and to hear the words spoken so joyfully from the inside.  Muffled, soft, but they cause my heart to sing and break at the same time. 

I reach my hand towards the window and it shuts with a clap, leaving nothing but the memory of the room's warmth to flush my cheeks.  I press my palm flat against the glass. 

How am I not seen?  Why am I still outside?

Empty promises.  Hopes that fall to the ground like the rain around me, left to gather at my naked feet.  I'm wearing my prettiest dress.  I so wanted to look my best.

Not enough.

Still, I stand outside, looking in with vague hopes of welcome.  I can never hear all that is spoken, nor can I ever feel the true comfort of the fire.  How I desire to sit near the hearth and eat of the feast inside.  But it isn't mine and it isn't to be, though I once thought it was.

Tilting my face to the sky, I close my eyes and allow the rain to strike my skin, wash me clean.  Make me forget.  Forget what?  That I wasn't invited.  The confusion.  The hurt.  Oh, the quiet whispers of the rain. 

I take a halting step backwards, my soaked dress heavy against my skin.  My bare feet are soft against the slick stones beneath them.  One more look into the lit room that is never to be mine.  The lantern inside flushes my cheeks for the last time.  How I long to be a part of that room, of that feast, but the room is not mine.  The name sung is not my own.

Perhaps somewhere, another block or another town, there is a room where I belong with a song sung only for me.  Perhaps I will be welcomed inside, embraced and wrapped in a warm cloak.  No more rain.  No more cold.  Perhaps.  Or perhaps I am meant for the air, for the rain, for the gentle embrace of the sky above.

My hand falls from the pane of the window, coming to rest at my side.

The rain still falls.  I walk slowly, weary under the weight of the hopes I've carried, broken by the empty meaning of my drenched white dress.  But a song whispers into my heart, lifting my spirit.  My name.  My song.  I am desired.  I do belong, somewhere. 

So I walk.