What’s wrong with me? I’ve been asking myself this all week.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I weigh questions coldly and logically. Then it hit to me.. it’s summer, silly, and I'm in classes!

A typical summer would find me tanned, sunburned, greased and unkempt, like a happy, sandy, beach hobo, my hair would be either braided or left fly-about to tangle into cotton candy wads.

My bf Peter’s learned to like fine restaurants (You’re welcome). I’d have never left the beach on my own.
“They can bring us anything,” I’d argue, looking up pitiably from my shaded, Tropitone lounge chair.

Around sundown, Peter would have to catch me, slippery oiled and brown, to comb me out and scrub me before dinner.
“Get dressed!” he’d encourage, picking out a dress suitable for dining or casino wear - “I made us a reservation.”

I’d come out of the en-suite in my fluffy, Versace, terry towel but invariably, before I was even dry,  Peter would shake his head, growl and say, “Com-mere,” holding his arms out a little, palms up
(he’s never been very verbose), and smirking a little, I would, because his expression reminded me of Christmas.
“What about our reservation?” I’d chuckle.

This was, of course, a volunteer situation, where it was up to us all to do our best.
.
.
Songs for thus:
Girls On the Beach by Carter Cathcart
Wouldn't It Be Nice by Papa Doo Run Run
Please Let Me Wonder by Carter Cathcart

Charles and my predawn jog was a sweat-athon and as the sun rose, a heat-dome brightness tattooed crisp shadows in every corner. Any lingering coolness was burned off - evaporated.

It was 94°f, 3 hours later, when I walked to campus - why don’t we use  parasols anymore? Drag on, radiant afternoon heat, please.
That was 100 proof sarcasm, in case you couldn’t tell.

Hot days seem to drag-on slowly, like waiting for a microwave or a droning, liturgy. It wasn’t in the forecast but I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear, “Today’s forecast is slow, really slow.”

Let’s start an Internet theory that the atmosphere is thinning or we’re just ants under a magnifying glass.

The finally setting sun left a blood red line under the falling blue dark, like a **** of wound in the skin of young-night.

Once my nightly obligations are done (classes, homework, reading), the silence can seem oppressive. I’m used to the never ending hustle, boiling drama and noise of seven suitemates - so there’s that.

On now empty nights, I’m tortured by the high-beating pulse of youth, and I pace my empty apartment, like someone restlessly waiting for their venti-mocha-latte at a Starbucks.

Can anyone suffer like a young woman left all alone?
Why, oh whomever, must I sip from this deep, bitter, undrinkably salty sea of solitude?

In this, my prime season, why do I only manage to exist?
My needs are in a shameful state of decay.
.
.
Cruel Summer by Bananarama
Habits (feat. Haley Reinhart) by Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox [E]
All That I Need by Ebony Loren, Matthew Ifield & Sebastian Kamae

Have you ever seen a pair of Nine West Folowe Pumps in Red Blooms Floral - or ever held a feathery pair? They offer the pure pleasure of perfection.

You can see them popping up lately, in streetwear silhouette, matched with Dolce & Gabbana’s floral-print leggings, making a duet of blooms—petal upon petal, like a garden in motion, or paired with the new, high-waisted barrel leg jeans, lending a flash of elegance, a bright flourish against dull denim.

They’re visions, wrought as if by the hand of Michelangelo, who once from marble freed David’s pose, or da Vinci, whose brush summoned the Mona Lisa’s secret smile.

In form, they’re d’Orsay cut, sporting curves as deliberate as the Sistine vaults arch. The stiletto heels rise with the ambition of a cathedral’s spire - neither too proud nor too meek, but balanced, like the symmetry of a butterfly’s painted wings.

Upon their surface, blood red blooms unfurl - petals as vivid as spring’s first flush - each blossom a testament to an artist’s hand, in riots of color and romance that dance with the same spirit as a flowerbed at dawn.

No flaws mar their making: the stitchings are true, the fits precise—as if tailored by the muses themselves. Each pair offers its own unique foliations, bespeaking the freedom of a craftsman’s careful art.

Lastly, of course, they’re marvels of harmonious function, lightly cradling and lifting each step - comfort and glamour aren’t adversaries here, but partners in making each step a sonnet and each stride an artist's brushstroke.

Now, maybe you aren’t into fashion - perhaps you’re a male - oh, poor you, I’m sorry, but maybe, just maybe, in times of chaos, you long for the pleasure of inexpensive perfection.
.
.
Songs for this:
Glamour Girl by Louie Austen
This is what falling in love feels like by JVKE

On the far edge of the world there are
fanatics of many minds and religions.
They have uninteresting histories,
jejune existences, and distorted ideas of nature.

Some are belligerent, felony-friendly foreigners.
I’ve never given them a single thought,
because they're nothing to me.

They’re insignificant—living curiosities
and I grant them no more sympathy
than I would a flock of wild birds.

Of course, I’d never wish to harm wild birds
unless they had the wherewithal to attack me,
in inimitable, Hitchcock style.
.
.
Songs for this:
Kashmir by  by Toni Jevicky
broken people by narcissists cookbook
Bring Me to Silence (Audiotree Live) by Fievel Is Glauque

go to bed  •think bemusingly of you
loop (cond) { tomorrow }
I rise in the morning (5am),
jog an 8K  •thinking of you, wash up
drink some flavored, black coffee
watch the morning sun balloon
eat toast while reading a set amount
write my unique and uninteresting analysis
work on half a dozen, odd assignments
walk .8 miles to campus  •thinking of you
team up, with some older, uninteresting guys
interview a focus group, present dataset interpretations
walk .8 miles back to my flat  •thinking of you
eat while reading a set amount
go to bed  •think bemusingly of you
loop (cond) { tomorrow }
I rise in the morning (5am)…
.
.
Songs for this:
Falling Down a Wellby Jack J
Overtime (pt 1) by Mk.gee  [E]

We’ll hitchhike to mars
on a rocket not a car,
so say your au revoirs.

We’ll steer towards Polaris, the north star
right through the center of the milky-way-bar.
See, the universe is dark and chocolatey.

Stars that glitter like multi-faceted gems,
are just shiny, yellow, peanut M&Ms,
take a handful, if you’d like, they’re free.

We’ll dodge the silhouetted moon,
which is made of enough coconut macaroon,
to make a French confectioner swoon.

As we go streaking, like a comet’s tail,
drag a finger through Saturn’s rings as well,
those are made of marshmallow.

We’ll  pass nebulae made of cotton-kandi,
and here’s a fact Einstein would have found handy,
the speed of light doesn’t apply to candy.
.
.
Ramble on by Toni Jevicky

We all have inner and outer lives.
They’re messy, hopelessly intertwined, and more
than mere mannequins to hang our word-art upon.

I’m supported, in my unwritten life, by a structure
of moods, both affine and counter-expressive. I’m,
in turns, a tightly wound vagabond, an over-busy,
fretful, unhappy liar (for what I will not share) and
a happy, truthful mess (for what I may overshare).

My outer-life is largely academic, and turned with
complete absorption to task, I plow thru the
needed assignments, like a caffeine fueled machine,

You might rightly call outer-me boring. I get it, for
nothing much happens beyond study and life’s
usual maintenances.

But my inner-life is full of action, if desires,
dreams, and internally ranting against the injustices of youthful separations can be rightly called actions.

Of my boyfriend, the world contains not one parallel.
He overshadows the few others I’ve ever known.
His masculine elements turn me all the way up,

He knows my petty vanities and most of my weaknesses. If he doesn’t know my every phase of feeling, or every desire of my love starved soul, it’s because our love is peripatetic.

Most of the year, we’re a long distance, digital, practical nothingness, A near autofictional anticipation. We are separated by a sea and more. If I may simply put it, I have a fine young body that is going to waste.

When I complained to my older sister, a surgeon who long delayed her own personal life for her career, she shruggingly and unsympathetically said, “You only have to suffer a few more years.”  
“Oh, mon Dieu!” I replied.
.
.
positions by Ariana Grande [E]
34+35 (Remix) by [feat. Doja Cat & Megan Thee Stallion] [E]