holding_you raze he walks with an awkward gait. his neck is bent forward. his eyes are somewhere else. he looks like the kind of gnarled old man who would yell at you for nothing. but when he stops to talk, he pulls back his hood and smiles through missing teeth, and he's transformed. even the mole on the side of his face looks like it's smiling. in broken english he talks about rain and negative ions. he says if you hate the rain it'll bring you nothing but misery. if you love it, it'll bring good things into your life. he asks me how i feel about the rain. i tell him we need it. without rain there would be no life. nothing would grow. the first time we stop to talk, he holds up his hand and says, "i don't want to hold you." the second time, he says, "i'm holding you again." what he doesn't understand of a language he didn't grow up speaking leads him to a place of deeper understanding. we aren't just talking. we're holding each other in the rain. 211225 what's it to you? who go blather from