pale light steeps,
hardening the sweat on my back
in creeps relief
but you don't know that.

one dawn, one day,
the sun won't bring the hope of something new.
One day,
I won't search for it, the morning dew
making my shoes wet.

One day,
the sun will stream in.
and it'll be just another morning.

Before a breath in, it is there—
muggy, swampy, heavenly.
Before a barefoot step outside, sweat folds
into the skin and won’t let go

that time they write about
is upon us.
Consider this the preface
to a 19th summer.

Where you sneak around
drinking sub-par humid beer,
stolen from the forgotten bucket left outside.
The June when you finally get to see
what all the fuss is about—
a sweaty push and pull you’ve wondered about
for years.

Freedom is before you,
released from the shackles of high school,
from a love that came too quickly,
and refused to leave.

get on that train,
into that car that you can finally touch;
do things with that boy you don’t love.

Home has never felt more like home
than when you’re on the porch,
venturing into a midnight
that is dripping with warmth
and the knowledge that never again
could you feel this young
and this old.

What will it feel like
To kiss you again?

Six months is a long time.
Will I recognize the swollen *****

Of your arms, your back,
Your legs against mine?

Long nights imagining you—
Close as we can be, will be over.

You’ll stir in your sleep, maybe
I’ll kiss your cheek?

Months and weeks will fall away
In the future and the past.

And no matter how many times
You bind yourself tightly

To the sinking ship that is my lips—
You know we’re not going to last?

It is Spring,
and you look at us,
take a picture
in the cherry blossom dress,
surrounded by your friends.

Summer nights
when you look at one of us in the bathroom,
grin and laugh at your drunkenness.
We smile back.

The leaves fall and you’re alone,
your breath fogs the glass in front of us
tears sliding down
“I'm dramatic”, you say.
If we could tell you something new,
it would be that we are there for you.

no one has seen you like we have,
checking your mascara
before your dates,
glancing in bathrooms when you feel overwhelmed,
before those college interviews,
sending pictures to the boys you like
that moment right before you cry.
Chin wobbling, lip teetering—

do not be afraid.
We are crying with you.

lucid, iridescent.
A vibrant remedy
to a gray backdrop.
three months felt like six,
and the past four have felt like two.

A pretty blade on my ear, benign,
what a lovely reminder that
the world can be good again--
you just have to shift the angle
to see it shimmer.

3:23 and I think
to be worrying
about my terrible grade
about the train being too slow
about having alcohol in my veins the night before

is profoundly lucky.

Tell me it’s bad to want to hold on
to trudging upstairs, laughing,
eating on the benches,
singing in the theatre and places
we weren’t supposed to

It’s bad to want to hold on but tell me
that those warm days weren’t
the best of your life,
staying up all night crying
when we realized it was ending

Tell me that holding on is bad
because all I remember is talking
for hours upon hours with
dusk falling, everyone laughing,
and feeling drunk without drinking

Don’t tell me holding on is bad
because I want to go back to a bonfire
when you sat next to me,
back when we had a chance.
Before we went into the dark,

with naive hopes held high.