Desert Rain | Prose Writing

To L.
Valentine’s Day, 2026

You remind me of the desert rain. I feel the cool waters seeping in through the dry cracks and hardened soil of an unyielding arid landscape. The fight for survival under the fierce sun, in extreme temperatures, and within miles of boiling sand no longer vexes me. I have grown accustomed to the disagreeable and forsaken lands that others might find suffocating and unbearable. I have found ways to persevere and sustain an ecosystem that breathes effortlessly with the barest trace of moisture in the air. I can thrive in isolation, admire the changing colors of the open sky, push forth resilient green fauna, and re-decorate the shape-shifting dunes in the direction of the wind.

The first time I encountered the desert rain, something in me shifted. I resisted the loosening of the soil, the sudden drop in temperature, and the disappearance of fissures that gave me character. The thunder’s roar and the torrential rain, so unlike the parched and gusting winds preceding it, created a momentary lull — followed by a sudden chaos that changed everything beyond recognition. The exposure of the weakened parts of the rough terrain is a terrifying thought. What stayed buried underneath becomes visible. The darker, less ostentatious, and broken insides of the desertscape can no longer be stored away as an embarrassing secret. The desert rain is like a forced confession; a cataclysmic event that soothes and softens me. The cragged, rocky grounds are touched by something that feels gentler and calmer than the merciless rays of the looming sun.

Such is your presence in my life. I have given myself permission to be altered by your being. I no longer fear the wide crevices that keep me trapped and living in shame. I am no longer averse to the risks of loving someone who has the ability to change his mind. I will always be made up of sand, stone and rock; some parts may remain bleak and inhospitable for a very long time; but the desert rain working its quiet miracles beneath the earth has slowly begun to seal the cracks and transform this wasteland in ways I could never imagine.