when i was a kid my summers tasted like
pink lemonade & ice cream

now they taste like mike's lemonade & prime times
(okay and ice cream too some days)

the hot stale air rises the same as it has my whole life
steaming from the Arizona pavement
i stand barefoot on my driveway at night
even though it is still almost hot enough to burn me

when i was a kid i sat outside at night
under a willow tree
& i wrote poems about birds & snakes
about field mice
but then my cat died and we buried him under that tree
so i stopped going out there

in my teens my writing started
to sour with anger and ****** urges
i spent more time alone

now as an adult i forgot how to be around other people
i write about my perception of
"pain", & my insignificant "suffering"
how we are all dying, how even the trees
& the animals i wrote about are dead now

i forgot how to be happy