In Which It's To Fucking Hot Everywhere I Go.

one time i saw
this old, half-burned cigarette
on the sidewalk that was so hot
if you dripped water on it
it would most certainly
hiss and steam like the skillet
after you fry eggs,
when you stick it under the running faucet
just for that sensory experience
of cold on heat,
and that cigarette was still smoldering
a little, like the coals do
on the grill
after a big family barbecue,
where your dad got a little too drunk on cooler beers
and your mom ate a little too much potato salad
and you played a little too much in the sun,
but some of the tobacco
had fallen out of the paper
and was strewn
in a line out from the filter
as if the wind had blown it like leaves,
like every late August when
everything living isn't,
but is brown and parched
and covers the ground in scentless,
temporary piles,
and i thought how maybe
i read too much into things
sometimes.

In Which "Bad Moon Rising" is Stuck In My Head.

i see a
not-so-great sun
rising
but i gotta meet it, baby,
yeah
gotta meet it despite
or maybe that was
in spite
and I can't tell you,
sweetie,
if trouble's on the way
but monsoon season's
certainly
around the next corner
or the one
after that,
soon enough to merit caution
or at least
a glance ahead,
and, honey,
you might be prepared
but more likely
you'll just be in time
for those clouds to burst or
break.

In Which I Took A Mental Health Day.

isn't lying supposed to
make you feel bad
or something,
tear at you like claws
or guilt?
you know, when it's not
to dry a loved one's tears
or keeps those special
gift-wrapped secrets?
or is that just what grownups
tell you so
you'll stay in line and
they won't have to figure out themselves
if it was you who ate that last bag of
Cheetos
before dinner?

In Which I Think Maybe I'll Give Myself Weekends Off Of This.

it's only sort of
in spiders crawling under
sunrise-golden door frames
or in breeze-ruffled
oleander-petal afternoons or
in evening sips of cold red wine
through previously parched lips
or even in the burning
incense that takes me back to
starlit-jasmine summer nights
when everything was
not better but less hard
not softer but less responsible
not lonely but less full of you.

In Which I'm Colouring My Hair, Again.

so much depends on
that red liquid-high
sliding into
droplets on your skin,
all the while
morphing who-you-are
into someone, maybe
new but
you hope it's old like jeans,
the kind you wear every day,
without washing,
and they fit like
they're part of you.