The Hope That Hurts More Than Cold

I am sad.

Not because the rain falls, but because I stand in it, holding this umbrella like a shield against nothing.

The water is cold. It soaks through my clothes. My hair sticks to my neck.

I do not move. I do not speak. I do not look up.

The lights behind me are bright, golden, blurred, people walking, laughing, moving past.

They do not see me. They do not stop.

I am here, and they are there.

That is the sadness: being seen as invisible while standing in plain sight.

I am sad because I am alone, and no one has asked why.

No one has offered to share my umbrella.

No one has said, “Come inside. Dry off. Sit down.”

I am sad because I have learned to expect this.

I am sad because I have stopped expecting anything else.

The rain does not care. The light does not pause.

The world keeps turning, wet and warm and indifferent.

I hold the umbrella tighter, as if it might protect me from the truth:

that loneliness is not an accident.

It is a condition.

It is what happens when you stop believing someone will come.

I am sad because I still hope they will.

And that hope hurts more than the cold.

More than the wet. More than the silence.

I am sad because I know I am not broken.

I am just forgotten. And forgetting is quieter than shouting.

It leaves no mark. Just this ache.

This quiet, heavy, unnameable weight in my chest.

I am sad. That is all. That is enough.