I am the lonely portrait— a relic of forgotten frames,
paused mid-stroke, as if the brush lost faith in its worth
My skin is painted by many words; learning how to be
tough, taking down note by hesitant note— while the music
always plays in a minor key, an echo with no crescendo,
a verse that never becomes a chorus.

I speak in shadows— duelling the lovely dark that dresses
itself as company. It moves like an earthquake beneath ribs,
quiet until it’s catastrophic, gentle until it crumbles;
paramount and omnipotent.

My tears are potent, but never that important – imported;
as they arrive like a contraband emotion, smuggled in through
brief touches, but never held long enough to feel like home.
No comfort in the snuggle, only a struggle for the struggle —
I carry a thousand reflections, yet none are my own. And still,
I try—stroke by trembling stroke— to repaint my worth without
a muse, without applause, just silence and canvas and longing.

I am the painter’s sad poem— unfinished, unframed; hanging
quietly in a gallery no one walks through anymore.

Everybody keeps saying how they’d dance in the rain —
sway their bodies, feel the drops,
let the water wash away their pain.

But I say —
why romanticize what you barely understand?
You sing to storms like they’re songs of healing,
but don’t you know?

Rain is sorrow.
Rain is memory leaking through the cracks.
It’s the sky mourning something it lost,
not some magic meant to set you free.

So when someone smiles
and whispers how much they want to dance in the rain,
I look away and answer softly:

Everything but the rain.
                                                  -Asher Graves