Boiled down to a puddle of liquids
there's not much to say
except bring your wellingtons

Hope someone has the generosity to dance on my grave

Just yonder there is a golden gate
at the end of a silver winding path.
Pure light streams through its portal
and to travel freely that road -
You must make the journey to your heart.

And in this summer heat,
I'm frozen like snow.
as soon as I fell like fall,
like spring, you had to go.

I wake up at daybreak,
but you were like the moon.
I tried to catch you like falling stars,
but night time left so soon.

In the waters, I'm a natural,
I can swim so I can't drown.
But you were my breath,
and I sunk without a sound.

Whenever you come around,
I know I'll never be spared.
You are my natural disaster,
and I'll always be unprepared.

oh, the sun is burning hot
as the waves rise up off of the black top
forming the familiar distortion
distinctly laced with humidity.

the young man marches, toes exposed
with flip-flops smacking down
and on the verge of melting
to the grand avenue sidewalk.

fuzzy memories like warped records
spin their sharps and flats in awkward places
and bring scent trails of teenage years:
bonfires, exhaust, lingering birdcages.

kreckel's still serves the same lemon ice cream,
but the billiards out back have been closed for a time.
quarters spent on raiden fighters rust in time
as the men muttering in the background play bumper pool.

the heat still feels the same in present summer,
and some of the same faces stay on the card.
routine and commitments are starting to build,
blurring the expressions of familiarity into fog.

the young man marches, face exposed
to the blistering light of day
as lines start to form where charm has twinkled
in the schoolyard and stagnant hallways.

years spent in sleep are pulsating
as the lull between cicadas
seems to stretch the summers south
to the screeching of metallic showcases.

he's buckled to the cracks in the concrete
that bulge upward and trip drunks after last call.
unshackled only to ride shotgun with the few
that still remember their seventh grade summers.

from mouth to messiah, the words felt compressed
lungs gasping frantic and fever dream blush
the croaking of hymns crescendo in the absence
of pomp left extinct in the burrowing hush

charisma unfiltered, he's charged with a burden
of casting the rhythm away from the strut
horned-god-be-******, the spittle and curse
that left mark on the imps and ghasts in his gut

by mother and kin, the night would seep in
and by father-in-tomb he'd oppose it,
for if paradise quakes and the bricks wilt and bend,
death would not emerge lest he chose it