‘Body Heat’

It has been cold.

•

But summer sun has beaten my back red, raw, rotten

and skin, flesh has deepened with the lines of the tendrils of light cusping the curves I loathe

grab, grab, tear

a victim to circumstance and consequence,

or a child, parent lost, crying in the sandpits with empty paws and starry eyes lost

•

Outbound or inbound,

it has been ice:

the words dropping out of my maw like icicles and melted, freezer-burnt popsicles, and undercooked pasta because I was never taught how to turn the stove on,

the words entering my heart like pointed cloves in a festive dinner, infusing, withering, rot.

•

Now summer turns into fall,

and back is bruised,

and you’ve forgotten my beckoning call,

and our hands aren’t as close as they used to be.

I am in a snow globe, encircled by frost and by the sedation of being alone

though there are peeks taken, they are taken from me, and the harrowing beacon placed upon my forehead only siren calls those who fancy funeral pyres.

•

last month.

I cried. and I wept.

and I begged for your return,

begged the sun that stole my frost for a while,

pleaded with the emptiness in my carcass home,

wailed against the beating tempest of employment and exhaustion and people who only know how to be crass,

and when we entered the wasps-nest and when we wore black upon our tanned hides,

I cried. and I wept.

•

and then I am empty.

•

and then it is cold again.

•

and now I am awfully terrified of becoming frozen,

but inevitability has a way with words,

and death has a long wingspan,

and it’s the only way I know

how to feel

alive.

•

09/04/19

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It has been a rough bundling of weeks, and I have not shared a poem since June. I apologize for the delay, and hope you can find this prose enjoyable. Thank you.