My mom always told me I was born with the soul of a poet, all tragedy and passion. But there’s no poetry in me now. I’m as insubstantial as the rain that pelts the window outside.

They’re still finding bodies. Teams working around the clock, clearing the destruction as embers hiss and pop behind the yellow caution tape that stretches nearly three full city blocks along the Seattle waterfront.

I stare blankly past my own reflection down into the gloom. My grip so tight on my coffee mug the ache borders on pain. I cling to it, grateful for the distraction from the darkness churning inside me, demons of grief whose howls continue to wake me in the night.

Today, the weather matches our collective grief; maybe it understands that it would be blasphemous for the sun to shine. 

So many of my favorite memories are rain-soaked and mist-blurred. I don’t mind the rain; Sadie and Tabitha were always moaning about the wet and cold. I love it, but that’s how we were. They were light and sunshine and warmth. I’d been born with a spark of darkness in me that never fully went out. 

Pressing my head to the cool glass, I watch the streets of downtown below. Everyone shoving past one another.  The city and its inhabitants are a bustling hive of activity that surges forward with no remorse, determined not to accept the world-altering change that’s just occurred in our own backyard and all across the country. 

Fucking sheep.