When the rain falls
Golden curtains, cigarette dusk — I ghost the city to my quiet heart. Home is where my halo waits, a dim halo edged in lamplight and the kind of hush that keeps its own council. Outside, the world clings to neon and hurried footsteps; inside, velvet silence settles like a coat I have longed to wear.
I traded the electric clatter for the hush of my own bones. Old movie light spills across the carpet, a faded projector casting vintage sunsets through my windowpane. I taught myself to love the hush: staying in as an act of quiet rebellion. The city’s clamour becomes a surrendered echo; I am content to curl inwards, to catalogue small mercies.
Grey Saturday: rain keeping time against the glass, a slow, patient percussion that blurs the world into soft grey. The house smells faintly of damp and tea, of old paper and the ghost of incense smoke. I unfold the morning paper — inked edges and margin notes — and let phrases land like raindrops. Somewhere, a kettle hisses and steam rises, carrying with it the room’s hush.
There is a perfume of paperbacks and late-night tea; I escaped the world and found heaven in my own breath. A pen tracks the margins of a journal, tracing sentences that fold back into memory. The radio plays something soft and slow; the sofa is moonlit, an altar of aching peace. I left the chaos at the door and married my solitude, folding my days into the small architecture of comfort.
Roses on the nightstand, lace curtains trembling with a timid light — these are the ornaments of my small kingdom. I light a candle, watch its flame render the room sacred, and chase no one’s echoes. The city sighs outside; I stay, unhurried and enough. Old records spin like constellations; the past and the present twine beneath my breath.
This is not loneliness as punishment, but a chosen exile: a tenderness for the self that looks like staying in, an insistence that contentment can be domestic and sovereign. I do not need to prove my worth in crowded rooms. My revolt is a softer one — a candlelit calm, a surrendered metropolis beyond the glass.
Tonight, I will let the curtain hold its gold, let dusk curl into incense shadows. I will read, write, sip, and listen to the rain compose its slow hymn. In rooms like this — with vintage sunsets painted across the windowpane and a halo waiting by the hearth — I am a quiet revolution wrapped in blankets and old records. I am, finally, home.
