Mollie
17
After You Caught Me Trying to Cook Summer
There is chocolate on my feet. Cinnamon
in my hair. Vanilla between my fingers.
I don’t need sugar when I’m around you;
I just appreciate it more.
This August sun has melted the chocolate in my soul;
I am drained of it.
We used to say,
“Chocolate fixes everything.”
But do not be trapped,
don’t mix yourself into my recipe.
I want you to run, take the wind for a walk my darling,
I know how to deal with my own despair.
There is cinnamon in my hair and I can’t wash it out.
Rain doesn’t help, nor do tears,
and we’re out of vanilla.
Take me to the edge of the bridge
and hold my hand while I look down
and think what it would feel like to jump.
This will make me all the more sure
that I don’t want to jump,
because I want you, all of you darling,
spreading like syrup around me; hold me
until the walls break.
The windows cut maps into your shoulders
when they break from your flailing arms.
I will trace the maps
with cinnamon fingers,
and find my way to you with a blue pen.
The scars from the broken glass will heal,
but that blue route will stay inked on you forever.
In the mornings, I’ll sing out an open window,
but the birds and the neighbors will be deaf to my call.
When the door closes on your arrival,
you will stretch a chocolate smile.
Summer will have passed, and the sun
will be too far away to melt it.
You will hold my lungs open for breath,
and pluck my vocal chords
into the kind of love song no one can ignore.
