Summer sharpens its teeth, whittles light down to
bedroom shadows, narrow eyes, and last August’s howl.
I’m counting hours, yearning gentle,
dreaming blue and nothing new; heart-heavy on a blank page.

I’ve been working my way back into the world,
licking the dead off of my fingers,
scraping back the hair on my legs,
reacquainting myself with dirt-days and sun-skin.

I’ve searched the streets for a midnight-blooming,
but found I was the one who was missing,
I was the one who forgot how to breathe.
Now I meet the sky on my own terms and glow.

There’s a lot of green out there.
There are lots of little suns and stars,
glistening, waiting to be drawn into frame,
ready to make a wish or watch it burn.

There are so many ways to tell a story.
There are so many ways to say “I am.”
I could find the world in the slow stretch of July,
in the way light fights back when held up to heat,
but I can’t find a way to say “I’m not.” and mean it.

Sharp summer cuts a furious lesson,
a swollen sketch, a yearning hand, and a bruised map.
I am still learning to tuck in my tongue and to taste softly,
I am still learning that my thoughts are mine for taking and breaking.

Something is clicking and it’s not my bones or my pining;
it's the sound of my own name in my mouth and my own hope in my hands.
It sounds like a horse galloping and like water boiling.
It sounds like a question. It sounds like an answer.

Sinless summer: sharp but I’m sharper, beckons
me from springtime’s sleep. It waited so long to hold
my face and sing me forward with a shimmering song
that sounds like a promise, that sounds like a way to say “Yes.”