It Never Rains Where I Stand – A.G. Diedericks

It never rains where I stand.

Cape Town’s water drought is rapidly approaching level zero, the city needs it more than I do. You died and I’m still waiting for that tantalizing storm they warned me about.

Your family wept for you and chose to utilize me as their scapegoat, waiting for me to immolate my emotions with looks that showed why I’m at home with foreigners and a foreigner when I’m at home.

Maybe it’s ’cause I don’t remember the memories; and I’ve foraged… all through our black & white photo albums. All I saw was anger, mirrored in the glass I removed from her hair after you couldn’t find your direction in life. And how my contempt for you was only eclipsed with self-denigration for not doing anything about it when I was still a kid.

You took me to the shop and littered my pockets with Molly candy hearts whilst my hands were tucked underneath gun control; you always knew how to circumvent the blue man group. Days spent dreaming of a dreamless sleep, breathing in asbestos and secondhand crack. Wasting away any potential we had.

I don’t want to denounce you, though. Only a coward would tell this true story and not let you to defend yourself and it’s not all your fault. I made a promise long ago to never turn out like you; I’ve kept that promise, ’cause I’m worse.

I know that I could have made more of an effort, or any effort for that matter to help improve our relationship. I know you’re still looking down on me, thinking, “he’s so full of shit!” and the worst part is, you’re not wrong.

There’s so much more that I need to say, so much more that I could do; I want to pour it out, all over this city where I rummage in desperation for the greyest cloud, waiting for the shudder of your lightning, waiting for some semblance of my elusive humanity, waiting to tell you that I became a writer…

But it won’t rain. It never rains… not where I stand.