It doesn’t rain —
it weeps through a broken mask,
the sky unzipping its stitched-up grief
and letting sorrow bleed down like silk.

Rain drips like rosary beads
counting sins backwards,
washing blood from sidewalks
but not from time.

Animals whisper first —
fur quivering with prophecy.
Dogs howl at ghosts we pretend aren’t there.
Cats dissolve into shadow
like smoke slipping through cracks in logic.

People sleep,
wrapped in their own warmth,
not knowing the storm outside
is the Earth mourning itself.

Some cry beneath the clouds.
Some grin like broken clocks.
Some dissolve —
quiet as paper in water.

They say every night ends —
but not every soul waits long enough
to see the ink fade.
Some vanish,
not because they gave up —
but because the veil closed too tight.

And no one reads
the pages they became.