What the Rain Washes Away
I started this artwork with the idea that I wanted to create something representing the concept that “rain washes away everything”. I had intended the larger raindrops to offer space for me to draw images of scenes that were being washed away, but then I completely forgot this idea on the next day that I was working on this piece, and I colored most of them in.
So, the next time I had the chance to work on this again, I tried to think of how I could still “salvage” the idea I was originally imagining of the rain washing away everything. I then remembered that I thought I had a poem from years ago about the rain, a poem that touched on this exact concept of rain-washing things away.
I spent at least an hour flipping through pages and pages of old poetry before I found it, and even then, I wasn't positive it was the poem I was thinking of — I’m still not sure it is the poem I was thinking of, to be honest. But it does discuss rain, so I decided it would do.
Of course, while I like the beginning of this poem, and find it emotionally resonate and with great potential, it seems to lose its own voice about two-thirds of the way through. Not surprising, as it's clear that I so desperately was trying to find a happy ending and a positive twist for the lyrics.
Exactly as I was in real life.
Writing this poem into the white space of the drawing still left a large gap all along the right-hand side of the page, and I realized I needed to find another poem to fill in that area. As the white space left the whole drawing feel unbalanced, and the message incomplete. Accurate in some ways to the theme of the drawing, but still not quite on point.
After thinking on it a bit, I realized that of course the only fitting text to go alongside would be the poem that addressed why I so desperately needed a happy ending, and why I so needed the rain to wash away everything in the first place: the poem that prompted the later rain poem, the poem I wrote about getting raped as a freshman in college.
So, the poem on the right was actually written first, sometime shortly after I was raped. It could very well have been written the very next day in fact. And the poem on the left, which the eye goes to first when looking at the artwork, was written two weeks after — after the poem, after the act, after the trauma, after the facts.
So, by then my conscious mind had been busy processing, categorizing, and covering up everything that happened, and shoving it down deep into the furthest recesses of my brain. Creating a new story, a new set of facts. Which is why the poem on the left, the poem about the rain washing away things, suddenly changes tenor towards the end and reaches so desperately for a happy ending — it was the first step in trying to make permanent the new, positive storyline.
Unfortunately, just as even a simmering pot eventually starts to bubble over, trauma never packs away neatly nor stays packed away. In the same way, while the rain does wash away everything in the moment, it doesn’t permanently erase all marks. Some are indelibly created.
So, the reality is, the rain washes away everything, leaving you with only the truth.
The Rain After
(Poem on left)
The rain began slowly:
Tracing careful paths down the window pane
Nature's expression of God's tears
Watched by the terrified eyes of the insane –
Ones trying to hide their lonely fears.
Insanity becomes blurred by the downpour
No one is sure if reality can exist
For the aching mind has become too sore,
No one can try anymore to insist
For everything has become too muddled
The cold tear-stained face –
Begging to be held tightly and cuddled,
Trying to forget certain times and places.
The tapping of the rain on the roof
Comforting in its droning monotony,
It is the same, reliable: it is truth,
And she doesn’t have to try to be.
Fleeting images of running through the rain
The body caressed by the water drops,
Being cleansed of the emotional pain,
Trying to lose the overused props.
A drop of rain following the same path as a tear,
Silently making its way down her face,
Shaking hands trying to mask the fear
Fingers following a pointless trace.
Echoes in the back of the mind
Of once well known and loved voices,
Bringing to mind the sands of time,
Slipping away from making choices.
Too frightened to believe in reliance,
Not wanting to be a burden:
Often being scared into compliance,
Even if that’s not what she wanted then.
Trying so hard to not go wrong,
To believe in herself; have some esteem,
To always hold on and be strong,
Yet she is never what she wants to seem.
The storm clouds mask the sky,
Dark grey covering the brilliant blue,
Never possible to ask why,
Never wanting to lean so much on you.
Being alone is being scared
It is very hard to go it on one’s own,
Yet some things are too much to be shared,
One must follow the paths they’ve sown.
There are things with too high a cost,
Such as that certain love and trust,
Once found it should not be lost,
So prevention should be a must.
No matter how the suffering and pain
There is too much to learn and gain
From a friend who stays through the rain.
— March 21
Caged Bird
(Poem on right)
He appears in a mystic wind
Of fate and fortune
bound together by one small strand
He shakes his curly locks
As he raises his laughter
To the gods.
Not in praise, but mockery,
for there is but one god
And he is him.
He came of an intoxication
Breathtaking, breathless.
Passion unfurled like a waving banner.
To be sung of on the mountaintops
To be held in respect.
The slowly ticking seduction
Marking off the seconds of life
Each grain of sand
Moves a bit further to your doom.
His grin lights up the room.
Evil fire spurting forth from green murky eyes.
Disguised as a child
Yet reliving his manhood.
He takes you down the path
Well trodden by many before you
Well marked by the signs...
Stones overturned
Lying listlessly on their sides
On the hot scorched ground.
Bemoaning those who have once traveled
And never turned back
And never turned back.
His lips brush yours
With the sweet intoxication
that yearns... yearns always for more.
His hands caress your hair
Til they become tangled,
Difficult to extricate... to escape.
And the demon burns in his eyes.
As the caged bird sings
His lonely song of sorrow
And the beauty once lost.
He has given up his
harried flights of anticipation.
Mourning the cold steel bars
Which have caught him for forever.
And the master turns off the lights
Leading you down the hall
Grinning his burning smile
And behind you the bird sings.
...taps once again...
— March 6