It's raining in love -- Richard Brautigan

(Poem #119)It's raining in love I don't know what it is, but I distrust myself when I start to like a girl a lot. It makes me nervous. I don't say the right things or perhaps I start to examine, evaluate, compute what I am saying. If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?" and she says, "I don't know," I start thinking: Does she really like me? In other words I get a little creepy. A friend of mine once said, "It's twenty times better to be friends with someone than it is to be in love with them." I think he's right and besides, it's raining somewhere, programming flowers and keeping snails happy. That's all taken care of. BUT if a girl likes me a lot and starts getting real nervous and suddenly begins asking me funny questions and looks sad if I give the wrong answers and she says things like, "Do you think it's going to rain?" and I say, "It beats me," and she says, "Oh," and looks a little sad at the clear blue California sky, I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time instead of me. -- Richard Brautigan