Mollie

17

Waking Thoughts of Summer

I thought this might be insanity,
this state in which I am floating above the clouds.

I thought I might sing out my window
let the fields tell me what I need

in rainsoaked,
hackneyed verse.

I thought I might skin my knees today,
and then maybe you would love me more.

I thought I might tear the books apart
so that I could reorder their pages

into something that doesn’t make me cry.
This I thought I might do

in a room with translucent walls
so that you would have to watch.

I thought I might kidnap the sun
so that I could make her turn her back to me;

I am so tired
of this nauseous brightness.

Some June mornings,
my dreams continue after I wake up.

They writhe in my shadow all day.
This waking sleepfulness won’t stop.

I thought I might sleep until the leaves fall,
but you took my hand and led me to an empty field.

I thought I might drown in the stream there,
but you found a four-leaf clover,

doused my fingertips in the soft touches of tall grass,
and reminded me that summer only lasts so long.