july, tropical depression (part ii)

summertime is hot.

it's hot.

but not only in the

clothes-clinging-to-your-skin

asphalt-scarring-the-soles-of-your-feet

trails-of-sweat-through-your-drugstore-foundation

open-the-car-door-and-taste-molten-lava

sense of the word.

no, it's hot in my bedroom, too

where cold, conditioned air whispers through vents

and ice cubes make music in glasses of peach soda

where i sit, perched on my bed

typing out poems with fingertips that sizzle

with every touch of a letter

in my room where black smoke curls dangerously at the ceiling

when i write, i write in flames

even when i don't

(perhaps, instead

in a church pew

or a school desk

or across from my mother at the dinner table)

still, i burn

every dusk

i watch the sun extinguish on the horizon

in a billow of envy

wishing she, too, could burn while the rest of my hemisphere sleeps,

to join in midnight conversation with me and faraway stars

sometimes i wonder:

if i crumbled to ashes on this mattress of mine,

a supernova of sad songs and “sorry”s,

how long would it take for those faraway stars

to realise i'd stopped burning?

how many minutes

before the last embers of my existence

are just orbital debris?

when that day comes,

the sun will rise again

and the summer will be hot (again)

and the world will wake up without me there

to blacken the hands i hold,

to char the lips that touch mine,

to soften the sidewalk under my feet

because i’ve gone cold now

so cold icicles decorate my jawline

but still summertime is hot

so hot that the absence of me

is no loss, no great rift in the climate of our world

just another july day