I stumbled along on the sidewalk, left to hang for judgment as cars passed by, whispering to each other through gaps in their distorted air-vents, watching me. I hid myself behind my broken blue umbrella, hoping they wouldn’t see. I was soaked from the rain, and the umbrella did nothing but hold it off for a brief moment. The rain managed to find the one flaw in it, and continued to plunk onto my head like falling spiders, crawling down and weaving themselves into my clothes. I was heavy, with water or tears. They poured down my face, as I hid under that broken blue umbrella, talking to myself, trying to convince myself that I could find someone, that I deserved someone, that everyone else just had their own flaws. The spiders continued to drop through the hole in the umbrella, as the words poured out of my mouth. Left in the rain to my own thoughts, the words told me things I never wanted to know. I was broken. Like the flawed umbrella, that let the brutal iced rain into my hiding place to torment me. Like me, the umbrella just wasn’t good enough.



I folded the umbrella, and walked on into the rain, while spiders poured on me, crawling over my skin. I did not cry.