It’s 6:47am on a Monday morning on I-71 south towards Cincinnati and I’m driving in the middle lane entirely surrounded by semis and service trucks and out of nowhere, like it was some miracle act of God, it starts pouring down rain so hard that all of the traffic stops in the height of morning rush hour, everyone’s radios playing morning talk shows so loud it vibrates the ground our tires are on and everyone’s coffees move back into their hands from their cup holders, I guess we’re all just trying to wait it out right now
I guess I have no choice but to wait it out right now, he says, hoodie wrinkled, two all nighter’s deep and still no passing grade, standing outside of the campus Starbucks, as it’s pouring down rain
I guess we’ll have to wait it out, says my sister to an 8 year old me, as I wait on the curb of our neighborhood for the ice cream truck, no matter how disfigured the spongebob popsicle’s face looks by the time I get it in my hands, and no matter the fact that I never understood that his eyes were bubblegum
I guess I have to wait it out, my father says, watching my grandmother lying in her hospital bed, getting tests taken for her potentially and what would be proven deadly, lung cancer,
Her eyes glossed over and her lips still yearning for the pull of her usual afternoon pack of cigarettes
You just have to wait it out, says my grandpa, standing next to me in his garden, after having helped me plant my first tomato seeds,
The summer has felt like forever at 10 years old, I wish it stayed that way, and I wish I liked tomatoes
I guess we just have to wait it out now, the head of police says to his crew of swat members, after having everything fail towards coaxing a young high school boy out of his boarded up bedroom, the shotgun he killed his ex girlfriend with, still in his arms
Well, we’re just going to have to wait it out,
I think to myself as I sit in this traffic at what is now exactly 7am on a rainy Monday morning in the middle lane of I-71 south towards Cincinnati, entirely surrounded by semis and service trucks
The rain will stop eventually