What If It Rains?

Medication. Dexamfetamine. Scary shit according to critics, but one thing is correct from the "naysayers". Medication isn't the only solution. In two weeks, I celebrate a year of ADHD stimulants (Vyvanse) as the only treatment I've ever stuck with. I'd say I've tried being good but in reality, it's not that simple. I wish I could say everything that would fawn approval from friends, doctors, family, and strangers. I could grip faucets of rainwater, tight as my hold to pretend the world is shit when I'm the biggest stinker to forget my past year. I marry my fiancee in 2027, when I've previously vowed I'd never. I have friends in great places, making new friends and revisiting plants of friends I forgot to water. They're still there if I show them attention.

I've watched Superman 2025 and Knights of the Seven Kingdoms and I've still got water to flood the pool outside. I had the best Christmas last year, since I was in school. I live in one of the richest countries in the world with parents that can offer me more than money can give. Parents. I used to think I was Bruce Wayne when I'm a Clark Kent smiling in a mine of kryptonite. A Ser Duncan of season one, I've been pommelled into the mud. It took beatings to get here, but I got up on this Friday the 13th. The person who I believed to threaten my pride, instead gifted me the answer I needed for humility. I saw myself reflected in a shared poem, Alone by Edgar Allan Poe. That's when it rained.

I've predicted the weather ever since I was a kid. The playtime of loneliness looked at skies, just to stay put when showers were predicted. When I was to be cleaned, I screamed instead. Toy Story was my shelter, The Aristocats too yet I still yelp in mind when the butler steals my friends! Maybe screaming was and is a way to communicate with mum that I need to be back inside the comfort zone, snuggled next to my first home. My screams always predicted tears and fears fountained only Batman, Spider-Man, Woody, or Theodore my first teddy would comfort. My mother would soothe me with eyes only a sister could share. My mum, no cumulonimbus, or so I thought. Only mine felt the capacity to hold clouds, but I recall the Brown Lake of Stradbroke Island. It's hard to see dark clouds with a brown cow's nose for a pupil's surrounds.

It rained today. My mother wasn't here. The mirrors of my nan's old bathroom occasionally holds my house's company. The Man in Black. The same old parted hair from Woody's times. My kryptonite speaks with me everyday. I let them beat me with their face, arms and legs. They're still very alien but I let them live. I pull from any retaliation. When I listen, profound circumstances begin that may as well be dreams. It's a jazz night date, an encouragement to help finish assignments. Four dollar friends, conversation withstanding that I initiated. A conversation with an ibis. "I put the first homosexual on the moon," from my fresh annual Easter Sunday Facebook profile. The doctor who first examined my handheld form fumbled his phone in the appointment room. Hair cuts of shoulder length distance from the past. Red hair. Short hair. A theatre audition, where I scream again with breath shakes and no tears. A poem:

It rained today.

It was blue.

A plane passed.

"I'm not a toy,"

I scream alone.

I won't ever stop screaming as I scream I'm listening. I've been predicted as high when I was listening. I'm in my head as the next bloke who allegedly said he lost his phone. Yet, I find I'm the one who cries as I'm home only to let myself steam. I don't want to be alone. I rid myself of poems - the folks - I write about that way. My best work is when I notice a gesture of a samaritan or find something amusing. I can't steam anymore. Maybe I should breathe more. I'm asthmatic and had croup once. Apparently it can be described as drowning. I can't remember being sick like this but if someone were to say, "We all arrive in the world screaming," I can confidently respond, "So what if it rains? We're breathing."

All thanks to Dexamfetamine and an ecstatic reflection of What If It Rains by Phoebe Purtill.