“Haven’t you heard? There’s this Japanese legend that says that your current face is the face of the person you loved most in your last life.”

I couldn’t help but to laugh at the words ringing through my head, but the more I thought of it, the more upset I became. If that was the case, then I had been awfully rude to the person who I loved in my past life. The constant poking and prodding and what if my nose were this way or that way. I sat in the mirror and contemplated, I should be nicer…

That simple statement kept me being kind to myself throughout my whole life, and now I sit here, staring at myself in the reflection of my lover’s eyes as he watches the light fade from mine. “Goodbye…” I whisper to my reflection. But then I take my hand and lay it on his cheek, feeling the hot tears slide down my palm, “I can’t wait to be so beautiful in the next life… goodbye.”

I think about you when it rains. Not summer rain, not the beautiful warms drops of rain that leave your skin cool as it trickles down your body; but winter rain. You know, the kind that whips around in the wind, pelting your body, making your skin sting? Every drop that I watch fall onto the moonroof of my car reminds me of the words you threw at me; the ones that stung, the ones that never quite leave me alone, the one’s that bounce around my head and vibrate throughout my skull on damned nights like these. You started off as that beautiful summer rain; what I wouldn’t do to feel that warmth on my skin again. We were beautiful, we were the rainbow after the rain and people loved to stop and stare. We were the fresh scent of wet grass and flowers that filled fields. But just like water, slowly you ate away at me, causing the erosion of my mind, body, and soul. The first drop of icy rain, the first time you uttered those ugly words to me, the second drop, the third, the fourth, then all at once. I didn’t hide away from the rain, I didn’t even have an umbrella to keep me dry, I just let it pummel me, a constant ache lit ablaze by those words. It’s too bad I didn’t get out of the rain sooner, because now I’ve caught a cold.

I think about you when it rains. Especially on nights like these, just me in my car, staring out at the sky as the cold rain hits the windows, on top of an unmarked grave.