Summer nights, hazy days, our eyes reflected in the light of a thousand dying fireflies-
The chapped shine of your parted lips; breath still cool even in the blaze of your oceanic eyes,
The slow, consuming heat that made us reach for each other, careful and feverish, with our limbs too aware of mortality, too aware of the dry leaves inked into our skins,
In that summer, we gave up our running, gave up our languid nights wishing, aching for oceans and stardust and lay heavy in the graves of sand and seaweed instead.
In that unchanging summer, we stopped trying to drown ourselves by accident and let ourselves be suffocated instead.