It tried to rain today.
It didn't.
I expected more...
          then and now.

It was mostly good,
     I guess.
Well,
at least we had someone
to share the bad with.

In these times of almost rain,
I start to wonder
what type of days it takes
for you to remember me.

You do, I hope.
Maybe when it almost rains.

I don't think your god could kill what we had.
I worry that someone has tried to
disguise it as something ugly.

I'm sick of ugly now.
You could never know how much.
   It was pretty once.
        I was pretty once.
Now it's ugly!

You know,
I remember how I hated him
   when you went away.
And how that hate started to decay inside of me.

It killed the poet,
and now it's working on the writer.
I'm even losing the music.

I wished it would have rained today.

I remember you when it rains...
and in the dark...
and when I need someone to throw
        the flag over me.

I see you in crowds
and in new cars when they pass.

Sometimes I believe
you are still huddled
upstairs in our bed
   under a plethora of blankets
            and Captain.

I know you're not.

One day, the decay will win
and the ugly will be gone.
History will remember the headline
and forget the details.

I loved you to an absolute.
I know you knew that.

I still do, I guess.

What we were was simple.
It was about what I gave,
and it was about what you gave up.

That's not fair.

...but neither are days that pretends to rain.

       —10/11/02