Wait it Out

by Juan Carlos Felipe G. Montenegro

It is August 2021. Rain has become more frequent. And you have been unemployed for 16 months. None of the job openings you find agree with you. None of them are what you were looking for. That is, when you were looking. What is it going to be this time? Last time it was because you were still scared of crowded places. No, this time it is the torrential rains that interfere with your network. The same rains that have made commutes even more impossible. Despite this, you wonder how rain can feel like refuge despite being a calamity—how it can turn baptism into slaughter— turning droughted streets into a basin of mistakes. The last time God had sent forth that kind of rain it was to make a clean slate, but how come it happens seasonally for us? You are luckier than most. A roof on your head and a steady provision of food means you can focus on inflating your other worries. Everyone is leaving, and you have nothing to say. The rain can speak more honesty than you can muster, spilling itself another half-dozen confessions of its own regret, unapologetic for its intrusion, leaking wood-stained tears into your walls. But you accept and give refuge for it all the same.

I want to be good for you. But what you mean by that is you can’t bear the silence, the brief exchange of hellos and nothing afterwards. Even in that exchange, there’s still latency. Artificial, too. You hate that you’re becoming accustomed to it, and when the time comes

that when you are exchanging the same hellos and smiles in person, the silence is more pronounced— a hanging pause that indicates you are no longer familiar. You are recounting what your conversations used to look like but cannot find them. They bear no resemblance to either of you. In due time, even those might cease. You want to be good. Meaning you want to be good for others. Because what else have you been other than disposable want, repurposed temporary need, claused with condition and expiry. What else can you be? I want to be good. Which is to say you want to be sanctuary. A basin for companionship. And you’ve expended your use. You want to be good. Meaning, you want them to stay.

Are your dreams still your dreams when placed in comparison? Is it still your body when you keep looking at it in retrospect? The “most” of you is still in yesterday—partial with the promise of returning. Another half-baked poetry draft won’t buy you a plane ticket out of here to be with everyone else. Not that you would want to leave. Why else are you not looking harder?

How many more intakes of breath? How many more days until you feel adequate? Just wait it out. Until your clothes can fit. Until it is much safer to take a mouthful of air shared with everyone else. Until you can catch up. And even when you have caught up. You choose to wait. F