summery peradventures
scorching heat out there
bakes you, unhappy skin cells
—a type of music
ambiguous summer breeze
is it the coldness
of the breath of a person?
—a chilly morning
Summer is a verb.
I can learn it like it’s a language and I want to see the world.
There’s a whole family I haven’t met that knows it inside out.
Let me in, show me a new heaven.
Summer is a verb.
I can write it like it’s a type of walk and I want to go the farthest.
How have we not found all the ways to travel?
I can connect here and home in a million different ways.
If I try all of them maybe I’ll find you on the way to finding myself.
Summer is a verb.
I can play it like it’s a blank page and I want to learn the concerts.
Let me find light in the pen marks, numbers,
spread out the universe in the music.
Summer is a verb.
I can feel it leaving like a sun-soaked cloud
and my skin shivers when it’s gone.
Sea salt made a fine layer of dust on your skin
when the cresting waves alternatingly
pushedand pulled your body
with the readiness of a lover. I stood
on the shore, toes gently lapped
by the aftermath to
the small violences you refused to shy away from
and daydreamed about your voice against my skin.
I called out to you, then,
and culled the seashells from my fist to select
the one best suited for your hand.
She lingered over her martini, an olive
floating gracefully in the gin,
vermouth and humor sitting dry on her tongue.
The summer evening slowly inched itself across the tablecloth
until the light from the candle at the center
hindered its crusade to bring on the dark.
I ran my hand over the flame, letting it lick the dent of my palm,
inching it further down until
the quick pain reminded me of that first pinprick of love
the night we met. Do you remember
the earthy smell of the apples slowly rotting under the leaves?
The world altering itself beneath our feet?
There was a sense of urgency back then, a need
for hastened fingertips and my lips to always be pressed to yours,
skin rubbed in raw emotion until it burned like kindling
in the night. Your eyes were golden
under the lanterns, your hands pale birds
swooping over your plate.
In that moment my skin burned for the ocean
of your curls across my hips,
the charm on your necklace to brush against my thigh,
the warmth of summer waves to pulse beneath my skin.
in the garden, in the nighttime
(formerly 'slipping away in the garden in the nighttime', with Old English, Dutch, and Germanic influence)
the leaves play their roles
they change colors, giving shade,
raindrops—welled up tears
Happily ever after doesn’t exist.
Not when people like you also exist.
I bought myself a new suit of armor so you don’t drive another knife in my back.
I told the vendor to hold the stallion because human legs were never for aesthetic purposes.
I wanted to walk the face of the Earth with you using my own.
We would’ve walked more than a thousand miles together to chase the sun and avoid the night.
And I never needed to worry about my tired legs.
They built up a tolerance from walking in the coastal sand and helping me keep up with dirty dishes.
I told you about my demons and how quickly I am to care when I’m shown an act of kindness.
Mother always lectured me that no matter how small they may be, they are never in vain.
But there is such a thing as being too kind. There is such a thing as temptation.
The best of us cave in once, twice, or maybe more than that when we write in our diaries.
You were like such a book to me and I trusted you, but never did I expect that you’d defile my soul
By persuading me to partake in activities that I would never in my right mind do.
I should have recalled the fable of a girl who trusted a poltergeist that haunted a similar diary.
Had I not flee the moment I saw your true character, I would have joined her in death.
Looking back, I understand that diaries are the keys to starting fires and turning innocents into fugitives.
You can try with all your might to pry my mouth open to get me to spill any more beans
But my lips are staying sealed because I know who you really are and I finally learned my lesson.
You never exposed me. You only leaked a chapter that was part of a book you never read.
So why bother showing it to you knowing that my real friends and family will be endangered as well?
I know that a deluded man gambled away so much ammo to the vipers that he became a trainwreck.
I swear on my recurring nightmares that any answers to your questions will be used against me.
Truth and justice is a concept invented by people and after all, people do make mistakes.
God bless the right to remain silent.
Because even the condemned understand that its value supersedes a vault of gold
That the draconian blackjack dealers steal from the poor that desire to play with them.
Where was Robin Hood when I needed him most?
Flash forward to a single year and I’m now twenty-five with an art degree in hand.
I’ve spent all that time studying my ass off and avoiding the vipers that plague my past.
I was with my true friends who never give a shit about your deceit when I realized I never needed you.
Preparing for financial exams under the tutelage of a bright mathematician was like you never existed.
So the next time you see me, I won’t grovel on the pavement begging you to take me back.
Instead, I’ll look the other way and French kiss my new admirer in front of you.
Just to let you know that I changed for the better and you missed out on the life we could’ve had.
I am fortunate to understand that your absence last summer turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
I dare you to call me an idiot again!
I dare you to call me a chicken!
I dare you to say that I’m going down
While you hide behind the blackjack dealers that love you for show!
There’s always someone out there willing to give you a taste of your own medicine anyway.
How did it feel when even Discordia didn’t want anything to do with you?
Was it salty and sour like your attitude and your deceit?
Cavities caused by the consumption of these candies are a pain for dentists to fill.
And just like that, you disappeared from the face of the Earth again. Hopefully, for good this time.
You can erase your identity from the world, but you cannot erase the marks your venom left behind.
You may still be on my mind from time to time, but I don’t see you in a virtuous light anymore.
You are nothing but a fable.
*
The day of most light
the summit of summer...
pours gifts
on earth
in silent waves
of the solar drummer
saiom shriver
by Jeph Johnson
awareness amplifies yet reason is muddled when surveying the physical charms residing underneath a yellow
summer cotton dress
wondering what legs and arms with taut tendons teach when shimmying and crippling one's just out of reach sinewed mystique
galloping bosoms may lurch forward a tad enabling a vague vestige of nipple to search for an eyeful of power
yes, awareness amplifies when physical charms coalesce underneath a yellow
summer cotton dress
psyche creates a carnal impulse to fondle fleshy folds of fascination found inside frictionous fantasies
so when offered a girl to touch with purpose one is instead resigned to yearning a tiptoe dancer twirling and hugging a dear life stripper pole
for proof tonight's goal is to snap an "up in your face" cellphone selfie with permission from the bouncer of course
the unadmired and aloof conquistador persona doesn't apply despite the envy of conquering by force an archetype that relinquishes nothing true destiny provides
rejection incubates an ugly embryo of misogyny if things are not just so
so the easy for most solution becomes a task tantamount to impossible:
unnegotiated enthusiastic consent
so until winter again comes 'round romance hides underneath a brown
summer cotton dress