They are not the same color. That would be impossible, you see, because absolutely no color in this world is absolute. This, even dogs should know. And they’re colorblinded.

I’m prattling on about a girl and a boy. I’m guessing one belongs to the other, but I’m not sure in which way.

All I know is, they’re in my way.

Faded at first glance, they are the picture of summer — a puncture wound through my can of Orangina, set to the lawn like a sprinkler — and, what d’ya know, they actually hit it off. Despite the mucked up colors pouring down on their parades. Despite the fact that they can’t see a damn thing, underneath that awning. Despite all that.

The boy, he finds a bunch of extra tickets on the ground. As if he’s not shaking, he keeps his feet planted. And grows arms, albeit skinny ones. He becomes a deciduous forest when he decides to place a leaning tower of tickets on the ticket-machine.

The girl, with her paintbrush hair, looks ready to swallow him whole

and spit him out later,

much later,

canvases and cries and curtains of

pure pink

later.

just for future reference
it is not cute to ask me to prom

when you’re three hundred-sixty five days
in the hole
when i’m turning twenty
this year

I
still
don’t
want
to
Go.

I thought wrong
about the taste of summer —

I woke this morning
to a sticky body
in a solid frame
moving through a tacky house
feeling
glued to the past
a nostalgic air
I breathed and
panicked and
wanted to call my mom
to tell her that summer was in the house

I shrunk down
I calmed down

I found pretty pills, favorite
I sat and ate it —

I woke again to
the taste of my skin
being shown

I sat
in my
salted sweat

pants
slipped

my
mind
dripped —

can the difference between
one
and another
actually just literally be
how horny
it makes you
to sit or to lie
perfectly still
against a setting sun on a life
that you’d known
for twice
as long
as anyone else’s
by this time
it’s got
multiple moons
and
crazed loons
and
choosing the light
over the night
and
what it means
to start
under
or over
that penniless
happy
little
mess