A Land Where Strangers Smile at You

I heard about rain
that falls sideways
pounding against bedroom windows.
We don't get much rain in California.
Only asphalt, steel and glass
and the stench of personal ambition
rising up to an acid-stained heaven.
When I can't take it anymore, I
go to the beach
and baptize myself in the smell of the sea,
hoping to find absolution in ocean breezes
and to lose myself amidst the churning waves.
But this rain that falls is so different.
It creeps in between my bones, relentless
and forces me to confront the emptiness
my life is becoming.
"I have no mouth and I must scream,"
I used to say.
Now God has given me a mouth
and rain to cover my shame
washing the cracks in the window pane.