Rainy Day College

The rain falls drably on the stuccoed, exterior grime of my apartment as I watch the clouds dance with one another, unaware which mass of weather is leading, unaware if the thundering, boisterous relationship will last, or like so many midnight moments, just pass, while the dog growls incessantly at the shadows of scurrying alley cats who ain’t got no alleys, let alone a dry spot that’s not under somebody’s something like a car or my porch, which is loved by all alley cats and people alike who want some dry place to spend the night and don’t mind the grime within (which was tracked from without) that I call my home, and no, I never wanted anything more than this, with the possible exception of a nice, dry day because, you see, the dog needs a walk and the people can’t talk about nothing except what they would do if it was nice (and I never seen them get off their lazy, rent-free asses and do anything when it’s nice except buy more drugs which we already got—saved some for a rainy day) and how they want to see the beach and do some water skiing and maybe go to a strip club, all of which they can’t afford because that bag on the coffee table is their life savings and we just rolling and smoking and rolling and smoking and sitting and wishing that the cats would leave or the dog would find another excuse to shut the hell up or the rain will cease so all of the aforementioned distractions would fade and we could all just head out into the humid drops of sunlight which conjures ghost-like steam from the potholed, asphalt street, where so many of us people met on that first day four years ago when the world was a brighter place and the streets were paved with possibilities and the dog was so little you could hold him in one hand and he’d still have room to lie down and take a nap, but somehow, the rain keeps on going and going and we know that we’ll never get back to that street where we met so many dramatic events ago; somehow we all know the rain will be forever and the street, (we’ll call it memory lane) will always be wet as someone turns on the ballgame and throws in some nostalgic sixties song, and even the cats seem to sing along as we once bright and shiny optimists are content to stay dry in the marijuana room, and never ask why, ‘lest the answer foreshadow our doom.