Kassandra

Original:

Rain.

I remember almost drowning
I still feel like a fool for loving him
We fell asleep under the stars one night
I swore our hearts drummed in sweet sync
He held my heart in the palm of his hand
Is it weird to crave a person on days
when rain ensues after kisses goodbye?
I gave him my poems as lullabies
to soothe his longing on damp nights when love
would not suffice to keep him full of me


Revision:

Rain.

Raindrops danced on the windshield.

Headlights and metal flashed.

There you stood on double yellow lines

as if you had been waiting to crash into me

all day.

I spun, 

heard the tires skid on liquid pavement, 

my lungs awash by silky skin.

I tried to stop, 

gasp for air between the swells,

but your eyes overflowed into my mouth,

my nostrils, down my throat,

and into every empty crevice of mine.

You washed through my veins,

claiming me as yours;

but I never asked to fall in love.

I never wanted to fall in love, 

but I slipped in the rain that day,

and you came anyway.

You came anyway.

In the revision, the speaker is opposite the one in the original, in that the original speaker was a woman and the new speaker is a man. These are differing vantage points of the exact same relationship that this couple was in.