Beneath the Rain: Not Yet, Not Yet

A hybrid flash fiction by Renee Coloman

We sit on the university steps. Your umbrella a sheathed sword between us. Wet cement glistens, captivated by each speckled pigment of your vibrant amber eyes. I dare not to touch you, not yet. Suppress the yearning ache in each of my fingertips, my hungry lips, the beating of my heart. I listen. Not to me, not to my desires, not to the wiring of my brain screaming for this love, for this cumulus cloud bursting with nimbus energy striking at my flesh. Not yet. I dare not to touch you. Not yet. 

I listen to the pitter patter of your tongue, moist in your mouth, calm. Sweet and serene. Gliding the depths of every ocean. Elevating polar ice caps. The tips of Mount Everest. I listen to your skin, a splash of your childhood, a picture, frolicking in beds of barnyard hay whilst the winds of words rip open my pores, swirling deep into the cups of my soul. Lifting me. Closer to you. 

Not yet. I dare not to touch you. Not yet. 

I hear the future in each lullaby you sing, soft as a mother’s whisper, nourishing me, as each droplet of rain, each molecule, microscopic atom, coalesces, defying gravity, defying space and time, to exist, crystalize, evaporate, and begin again. You and me. Me and you. A cyclical event of lives unspent. I dare not to touch you. 

Not yet. Not yet. 

We sat on the university steps. You opened your umbrella. Stood tall above me. Pellets of rain peppered my jeans, my jacket, my tempest of vulnerabilities. Love struck, I felt weakened by your strengths. Buckled at my knees. 

Not yet. Not yet. I dared not to touch you. Not yet.

I close my eyes, fearful of my dreams. Easily the wind seizes your umbrella, carries you far, far away. I should have kissed you. Swallowed your open embrace. Melted in your droplets of rain.

Yes, yes. I should have touched you. I should have. Yes. 

I sit on the university steps. The rain falls. The rain. Falls. 

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Pen, ink, & suffering. Read and write, always, with no regrets.