𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗬: “Requiem of The Rain” By John Paul Reyven S. Anadilla

Published by: Jadelynn Arnigo

Date Published: July 31, 2025

Time Published: 8:44 AM

Category: Prose

Theme: The ache of absence—how love, once lost, creates a void so deep it becomes sacred, where grief is not the parallel of love but its final, most brutal form: memory made flesh, then eroded into nothing.

The doorway cleaves—parting, sundering—a soundless rip in the world's pelt, less wood than calcified grief giving way. Like cartilage, yes, but cartilage petrified beneath the ossified burden of what refused decay, a thing past death yet clinging to the shape of absence. The rain falls and sutures the silence. A cold, silver filament drawn taut by unseen hands, needling its way through crumbling mortar, probing the hollows of core, stitching itself into the frayed fidelity of those dusk-consumed revenants. They drift; they dissolve, 𝘮𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘦, into thickening gloom. Abandoned umbrellas never be litter; but carcasses. Upturned thoraxes, chitinous husks, spines scooped clean by a wind that carries only dust and the scent of forgetting. Heads bowen not in grief, but in a terrifying, vacant expulsion—a surrender so absolute it mimics reverence, 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝘁𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿.

I stand wedged in the doorway’s ragged maw. Not poised. Impaled. Braced against the agony like a 𝙗𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙮 𝙡𝙤𝙙𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙩, a confession whose syllables have fossilized on the tongue. Above, the sky lacerates itself. Before me, silhouettes stretch—not merely lengthen, but deliquesce. They bleed one into the next, a procession of faces scoured raw by an antediluvian salt, the kind that weather names from gravestones but 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. Each glance that snags mine detonates—silvered planes imploding inward, shards and fragments of negation.

I arrived before the hour could congeal its cruelty—still pliant, 𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘃𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘂𝗻𝘀𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗯𝘀, teeth unbroken on the skin of hope. Before I mastered the cautery of yearning, the branding iron held to the raw nerve before it could seep its slow poison into the joists, into the wetwood where rot doesn't wait—it anticipates, a patient hunger. Tonight, your absence cinches tight, a collar of cold iron. The walls reflect; they masticate, grinding your name between stone teeth like a curse incised by the very rusted nail that once suspended our pathetic pantomime of forever.

𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥.

𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙡𝙮 𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚.

And beneath the clavicle’s gallows, something oscillates—not muscle, not memory, but a deeper sediment. A resonance. As if grief were a subsonic thrum only audible to shattered tuning forks, vibrating in the interstitial between heartbeats, low, insistent, treacherous. I reach for the 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗴𝗲𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝘆 of your shoulder. My hand plunges into atmospheric slough—a vacancy that once held warmth, now merely the shape of evaporation.

I hurled your name into the thunder’s raw throat. It didn't repeat. It unspooled, a fragile thread snapped mid-air, disintegrating before the first consonant could claim existence. The rain remained—𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘺, a complicit witness. It dragged its sodden shroud across the fissures you deemed unworthy of your apparition benediction.

Rain should be an incarnation of 𝘆𝗼𝘂—slow, deliberate, a drowning that ceases only when saturation becomes annihilation. Instead, it touches me with the indifference of a stranger, a priest anointing only the sterile plains of skin your 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥. I remain profane in the void where your touch once resonated, places that still contract like wounded things at the ghost of your hands.

Something feral now blooms in the cavity behind my petrified shell—a ravine devouring every vowel that still dares attempt 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲. I keep shaping it with ruined lips, a futile incantation. But 𝙣𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙗𝙡𝙪𝙣𝙩 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨. They lacerate the tongue. They vanish, absorbed by the waiting dark.

Where do you undergo your slow erosion now?

What brittle tomb did you coil yourself into when the world contracted like a dying lung?

We were too unformed, too 𝘴𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺-𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯, to brand the word forever without it scorching straight through to the quick, leaving only char. Too fractured to flee without shedding shards of ourselves into the framework of every slammed door.

So I 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻

I 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗯𝘂𝘀𝘁

I 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲 with impeccable courtesy.

This room has 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦. The bed arranges its emptiness nightly around a ghost too weary to haunt. The window gapes wider, a slack jaw, and the rain begins its nesting, a wet usurper. I am the 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 in a structure that comprehends only endurance, not conflagration.

I turn—𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯, 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯—a spasm of neurological compulsion. Sleep denies me like a betrayed deity. The ceiling pronounces its sentence in the damp plaster:

𝙎𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙭𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙥𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙪𝙚

And the noiselessness doesn't repeat the verdict. It ingests it.

I would cast every coin of my ill-gotten wealth into the abyss, drown every jewel in the mire of the earth, 𝘪𝘧 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦—the one that once rested against my chest. I have lain in her arms as if death itself were a lullaby, and the sound of her breathing was a sanctuary 𝗜 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲. I would bleed myself empty, 𝘃𝗲𝗶𝗻 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘃𝗲𝗶𝗻, just to hear her laugh again through my memory. She is not gone; she has rooted herself like a splintered sorrow in the centre of my soul, a 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙧 suspended in perpetuity behind my eyes—never falling, never drying, 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.

Or perhaps the flaw was inherent: I was never engineered to love 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗿𝗮𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱, without leaving scars like signatures on the yielding flesh of the world.

Return.

Or remain gone.

I will keep singing into the drowned dark, my voice a frayed wire sparking in the storm’s wet mouth, until the rain learns to shape your absence 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘐 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦. 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘪𝘳, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗲𝗺 𝗜 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗸𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁. The rain will never say it right—𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙣𝙚𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙄.

𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱.

𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗳𝘁.

𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀—

𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘺𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦

𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘵.