Tattooed by rain

I dance beneath a bruised sky,
Rain needling patterns on my skin,
Cold stings like broken glass,
Yet somewhere, beneath my ribs,
A slow ember catches,
Turning the storm into breath.

The night’s grip bites at the bone,
A harsh hand on fragile seams,
But beneath the weight of it all,
A pulse stirs, stubborn, unyielding—
Not a quiet flicker,
But a flame rising in defiance.

Each drop carves truths I didn’t know,
I wear the storm like second skin.
The past spills out in jagged lines,
Tracing scars I couldn’t see.
I burn beneath its weight—
Alive, trembling, whole.

I surrender to the torrent’s pull,
Let it tear through the names I’ve worn,
Let it strip away what I’m not—
And in the cold, I find a heat
Forged from loss,
Blazing against the drowning night.

The storm peels back the layers,
Unraveling skin I no longer need.
I rise from the earth, remade,
More than the cracks it’s traced,
More than the rain-soaked past.
Each drop burns, and I walk through fire.

Tattooed by rain, I stand in flame,
A map of wounds and fire and ash,
Every scar now a thread of gold.
I breathe the storm, I break, I mend—
Reborn not through light,
But by the flame that survives the flood.