It’s the last Tuesday of September—
and I can’t help but rewind.
The first Tuesday of this month—
I still remember, it was raining.
And today, once again,
the skies open up,
as if nature too keeps its promises.
A manifestation?
Or just the wonder of a world
that listens silently
to the whispers we drop into its air.

What if, I wondered once,
September ends with a cry alongside me?
And now here it is—
the clouds weeping soft tears,
their drops blending into the notes
of the low-volume instrumental
playing in my earphones.
I stand at the balcony’s edge,
fingers commanding the keyboard,
pouring every fragment of thought
into letters that stumble and scatter.

It shouldn’t be tough to write,
yet I pause—
how everything shifted,
from that first Tuesday
to this final one.
And yet, one thing hasn’t changed—
the rain.

Different?
Maybe.
Maybe not.

That same place in front of me—
two jasmines once bloomed there.
One, steady and open to the rain,
the other just a fragile bud,
dreaming of its moment to unfold.
But petals broke—
too soon, too fragile,
as if beauty carried
its own curse of fragility.
That flower,
hoping to bloom brighter than any before,
didn’t know the storm was waiting—
a storm not of clouds,
but of overthinking,
sweeping it away into pieces unseen.

How strange it is—
to laugh with the rain,
yet choose to write instead of feel.
The jasmine whispers:
“Should I speak? Should I tell my story?”
“Not this time… phr kabhi.”

Perhaps this rain arrives only to remind—
that after every summer,
an autumn must come.
But what if—
we fall in love with summer itself?
What if we’re not ready to say goodbye,
to let go,
to surrender to the season of falling leaves?
What if, for once,
we wanted summer to stay?