july

the hardest part of my life to date.

July is the sleepless time, the wakeless time,
In which the heat that transfixes me in its swollen hand,
Brings me a thread of dreams
Which it ties around my little finger
And winds around my chest cavity
Until I can no longer breathe or follow.
Please do not leave me here.
In the crushed stamen cage of this disparaging night
Where the unadulterated violin fragrance
Draws its bow across my nerves, creating
The sensory symphony of electricity and impulse which
Stems from midnight and from being all alone.
(Keep up)

Though I look out, there are no stars there beneath the canopy
And your footsteps have grown soft in the constant insect drum.
I reach out to you and you are only the brush of canvas,
The glassy river on a gravel beach,
The faintest, unanswering, being,
Untouchable and infectious as the fog which exhales on the water.
You are only the words which follow me still admonishing the same
(Why are you so weak?)

Lay me down on a bed of myosotis
And cover me in rain.
These are fever dreams you have brought me
(Keep up, keep up, keep up)

I dip a greedy fist fingers first into a mason jar of mercury
Watching as it overflows, sending metal dripping down the sides.
I imagine myself Hephaestus, and strong.
"But more of the same", says the shed skeleton of the cicada.
"I have waited my whole life for this."
I cannot sleep. Please let me sleep.
(Come on, keep up.)

It is another rainy night and the world is pregnant with water
Footsteps swelled, a plodding path
Steadfast to some new uncertainty.
There are the leaves that reverberate in wakelessness
And the violet words on everyone else's lips,
But I tell myself it will all be better in the morning.