haven’t you heard what happens to girls in heat?
those sweaty painted-palmed girls
who slide through slick, sick summer days
as though light were some precious commodity
and traded hands instead of staining their backs

and you, little firecracker, fought fahrenheit
with fire, counting the days on your slow-burning fuse,
and in the meantime taking those
romanticized long walks on the beach
holding hands with nirvana
stealing kisses from his pockets
and ultimately concluding that he was too dry,
too serious, too much like thunderstorms
without rain, and not dipping his feet
in the tide, lest the sand stick to them

so you walked off into the horizon,
dragging your worries with you