"July"

July feels heavy on my back, thick in the air. 

My swollen brain drones on with the buzz 

of throngs of cicadas packed into a cavernous space. 

Historically, commitmentless July has been the month

of the most promises and the least action.

Unstructured days melt down my arms 

into a sticky, saccharine puddle at my feet

before I get the chance to taste them.

It worries me that this time now 

might be the solstice of my life. 

The time with the most time for doing things, 

days bursting with life in the grass 

and amidst the trees, while I find it too hot 

to do anything but retreat back inside. 

On Saturday I did nothing, 

and thus I’m worried about Sunday’s fate as well. 

But in July, days are arbitrary distinctions. 

There is simply now and later and before, 

though now seems to become before 

before I realize it’s now in the moment.

I watch the time fall away like icing slowly

gliding off a too warm cake in gloopy clumps.

Clouds that used to hold epic poems

in the folds of their puffy shapes now 

just seem to be whispers of ideas, 

monosyllabic phrases suspended 

in an arid blue sky. 

The promise of rain has long since evaporated.

Yet the sun remains, bearing its judgment down 

upon me with scalding tentacles of light, and 

I’m suddenly gripped with this overwhelming urge 

to jump into the nearest body of water to evade its gaze, 

even if it means I drown in my own avoidance.