ONE OF THOSE SPRING DAYS WHERE THE RAIN FORGETS TO STOP

Rain comes down hard.
It feels like weeks on end now.

The weather is supposed to break for better,
But it never does.

And yet,
I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Outside a small, community theatre,
Intermission of a show an old friend of mine had directed,
And there we were dashing through the backdrop of the rain to get to a little abandoned doorway that felt like it was made just for us.

Splitting a cigarette with her,
In our own personal enclave.

With a woman
Who so carefully put together my good dreams
And shushed away the bad ones,
Holding my large, unwieldy, sweaty body in her own

How perfectly soothing and soft she’d stroke the hairs that ran down my chest
Just as now
How perfectly the water cascaded down the slanted driveway across the street from us

And as the buses pass by,
Bright red and electric blue laid over top of a modern white
Her whole face would light up to be even brighter,
Her pupils would be so wide and I’d stand across from her
My head cocked to the side,
And in that same head thoughts would be running and running, wondering what word I could use to describe her shade of lipstick

And as I’m staring so intently at those lips they open up.
Slowly,
as if she’s got something just for me and her.
She says, “Maybe the rain will stop during the second act”

During the beat of rest another bus roars by, each tire seeming to individually slap the rain below

“But if it doesn’t, that’d be okay.”

After the second act,
The rain hasn’t stopped.
And I’ll be damned if she wasn’t right:

It was still all okay.

I, The King.

his broken hands reaching towards
coins that rattle weakly inside the plastic change jar he keeps in the center console.
he scoops out enough to buy dinner,
and that’s all he’s got left.

working like mad, lifting slabs of concrete and marching them around construction sites.
Endlessly gripping and moving
like some Sisyphean creation being senselessly and eternally punished.

and when he reaches the orange of the cones marking off the construction zone,
he blinks at the bleakness of his fate:
endless labor & the hopeless life
love & the possibility of that love going futile
company profits he’d never receive & the anxiety-ridden nights spent nervously pacing around the
apartment complex

it is the world he knows,
and all of her quirks.

He whispers the old Picasso line “I, the king.”

He goes home after work and creates his own art.

suddenly, it is the world he commands,
and all of her beauty.

Adam Gunther is a 20 year old up-and-coming writer that hails from Bay City, Michigan and now lives in the heart of Chicago. Growing up Adam always had a passion for creative writing. Most of Adam’s writing centers around the beauty within the mundane interactions in life. Whether it be with complete strangers or longtime friends, Adam finds simple stories and anecdotes that speak to bigger themes of struggle, finding meaning, fairness and of course: love. His work has been published in Sun and Sandstone Magazine and will be published in December in Word Fountain Magazine.