i rise with the temperature
ripples off the sidewalk
like all the pools i've jumped in every summer of my life.

i am 8, and the world is the brightest yellow
video games, family, bike rides
from daybreak to sundown
the smell of the trampoline stuck to my hair
sunburnt skin and grass stains
the thrum of cicadas and mourning doves
in one huge chorus, like the heartbeat of the earth
cigarette smoke clings to everything, but no one cares
saturday nights are when everyone plays cards
and the kids are all together
endless games in the basement, and down the hall

everything sighs.
taps the hurt in its chest.

i am 10
and the summer just means i'm home again
everything is a blue, like the sky above the ugly neighborhood
my knees with little lines on them
from being pressed against the vent on the floor
looking out the window
feeling the dusty a/c
wondering how much more a person could feel.
reading books in my room
listening to the birds, and toddler fighting outside
swimming at the apartments, learning to dive
the Cardinals are winning, with the bases loaded
and i've been reading this book so long
the carpet left marks on my arms

everything waits.
draws a blank.

i am 13.
the summer just means it's too hot to wear jeans
things have been gray for a long time now
the laughter from the other kids
still not quite as loud as the ones in the mirror, or behind my eyes
waking up is like treading quicksand
new school, new things to hate
new things to do wrong, places to be invisible
my island surrounded by an ocean made of black glass
i don't remember what home feels like

everything blinks.
takes a second to steady itself.

i am 14
i couldn't feel the heat if it set me on fire
there isn't color
no black or white, or shades of gray
i've seen the color people see when they go blind
all the organs have left my chest
wind whistles through my cavities, plays on my ribs
just as hollow as my eyes look
no words came out when none were passed to me
breaking the stolen scissors on the bathroom floor
i promised myself i would learn to feel something
but they were blunt
nothing magic poured out of my skin
im not a red balloon, im a tree stump

everything stops.
retraces its steps.

i am 15.
things are just as they were
i am back looking at the sky over apartments
pink hair brighter than the sunlight
but a monster is gnawing deep at my rib cage
my mind says the grass is green
but the world has turned mud brown
the kind that gets stirred up when it thunderstorms
kind of like i do every other evening
over a boy who took my virginity, told me to **** myself
it was my fault when he put fire in his skin
my fault no one loved him
i didn't do enough
i hoped the summer would set me on fire again

everything looks down
forces the recollections out

i am 16.
the summer means weeks away from home
spent drunk with friends promised to the army
the stories and the veil over my eyes, the best team
everything is a sick neon green
i wanted so badly to know what love felt like
to make the green turn into pink
for the clouds to come down and let me touch them
but then i remember its just the acid i did
everything will be gray again soon

everything shuts its eyes
hesitates

i am 17.
the summer is a bluish black
it means no school, no people, the color of asphalt
a best friend i had since i tamed my car
the concept of freedom plays with my hair with the windows down
but i know i'm not going anywhere
suddenly things are eggshell white
the color of the walls in the apartment
i'm always trapped in one of those
there for *** and verbal abuse
hoping i make a better punching bag than a person
i know things are a little better when i play guitar on the roof
and play games and smell like sunburn,
just like when i was a kid

everything cries
wonders why everything happens the way it does

i am 18.
the summer isn't here yet
i dream in flashes
vast blue and green, the day i first got to know you
im not ready to be inside four white walls again
the pink ones exude a comfort i can't express
i feel a silent loneliness caress my ribcage again
and suddenly i am 10
wide eyed and quiet
i push my glasses back onto my face
and hope i get a phone call soon
calculating how to make 3 weeks fit into 3 hours
then giving up on all of it
wanting from a wishing well far deeper than my own
to be able to fly with you to the desert
where things will be yellow again
but i know far more than i did
money and the concept of medication bare their teeth my direction

everything sits.
none of it is worth thinking about anymore.

numbness bites my fingertips now
somewhere in the pit of my stomach
i wrote a note about the memories
and not really wanting to repeat
the summer

here's how it happens
the morning after
you reach into the drawer
where the your t-shirts live
to find it austere
you'll shrug because
you're still drunk
& you can't remember
when last it was
that you had something wet
or how long it's been
since you made the floorboards blush
or why the carpet is upset
who wouldn't be
the contents to the upended ashtray
strewn around the apartment
resemble the aftermath
of the smallest war
to ever take place in norfolk
some midnight thief
must've made off with the lighter
because it isn't in
any of your favorite spots
maybe you chucked it
along with a hundred other things
that make noise when they land
in the neighbors yard
you won't remember putting
the refrigerator's belongings
in the bathtub
or scrawling a buzzard
on the bedroom door
but then again who would
you'll pretend it's spring again
before putting on your winter coat
to go out front with a cigarette
in your mouth
you'll hope for a passing stranger
to *** a light from
or drag yourself to the corner
with couch cushion change
to buy a new lighter
and on your way
you won't bother looking back
this is just another day
on eggshells for no reason
another november
choking on birthday candles
on your way home
you step over beer cans
the kind you fell in love with
and wonder who
had the last laugh last night
or if anyone said a word at all
it might've been another
moment of clarity
it might have been some idiot savant
any adjective that feels like home
anything that keeps you thirsty

have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

she was leaving
and got the gumption
to see me before she did
so we went to dinner
she sat, crumpled
at the edge of the booth
playing with her silverware
hands sweating
our knees barely touching
underneath the table
they shook like the day we met
they shook like floodgates
when the clouds get upset
her hair was drawn back
into an apology
and she didn't answer
when the waiter asked for drinks
she pans, tilts
looking for the restroom
but doesn't get up
covers her mouth
to hide her furled chin
i cut her a piece of bread
not sparingly
i didn't want to ruin the symbolism
of cutting a gangrenous thing
from ones self
she half wept out "tell me a joke"
i thought to say "look at us."
that's it. that's the joke.
the premise & the punch line
sharing some silence
here in this ominous moment
so thick with goodbye
you could touch it
i said "when they asked what the name was for the wait, i should've said "awkward, party of 2"
but that's not the joke
"knock knock"
she whispered "who's there?"
i sat for a moment and said
"so we've come full circle.. we're even in the same seats, from all those months ago"
her lips quivered
and she hid her mouth
"i just wanted to hear a joke"
she said
i came back with
*"if i fell for you in a quiet restaurant & no one was around to hear it, does the laughter of children i drempt we'd have make a sound?"

and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference