Mom saved for months
It took forever for my ticket
To get pulled in the lottery
But it did, and I'm here
Outside the door, the other kids
Pushing against me
But gently because none of us
Want to get kicked out for acting up
And then the door opens and while
We want to run inside, we walk
Stand quietly over the grated floor
And listen to the instructions
There are a lot of them for such
A simple room but I guess some kids
Panic or something—I'm not gonna

Then it starts, the room darkens and
There's this sense of heaviness
Like when you close your mouth
And puff it up with air and you can feel
The pressure in your ears and your nose
There's no other warning
The rain just starts—one of my
Classmates said it would feel
Like a shower but she was wrong
Yeah, this is water but it doesn't trickle
It's misting down on us steadily and the clothes
We changed into when we arrived
Are getting wet and heavy and then
The mist becomes harder and comes faster
And the rain just pours on us and I try to
Imagine when this happened in the real world
And people just went about their day
Or maybe waited out the storm
Or if they were growing things in dirt
Instead of air or water like we do now
They prayed for rain to water their crops

We start to dance, skipping and laughing
And everyone is smiling, even the kid
I thought for sure was going to freak out
Once she got in the rain room but she's not
She smiles at me and says, "Rain's cool"
And she's right so we hold hands for a moment
And spin like in that old movie only
We don't have an umbrella or a lamppost
But I get it now, I get why someone might
Want to sing in this, and then, the downpour
Starts to taper off and the instructions
Come back and I bet they do that on purpose
To ease us into reality, the same way I
Have to ease my baby brother into being awake
So he doesn't get too upset when he has to
Leave a dream, and even though I know this
I still want to go again, but there's nowhere
To hide in the room so I can't do that
I follow the other kids out, to the room where
Our dry clothes wait for our dry walk back home
As I dress, I hope tonight I'll dream of rain