Aubrey

17

The Summer the City Drown

I willed the city to drown in the rain

for no real reason other than the pure fact of wanting to feel it.
wanting to drink the sky's divine offering as entirely as the earth has for all of time.
the sky offers, the earth drinks.
the ideal exchange.

I want to feel that.

which is not to say that I am empty,
which is not to say that I am full
- though perhaps full of longing
for an exchange as equal and fulfilling as the offering & drinking of the rain.

tis a strange event
to feel utterly
singular
where you once felt immensely
plural.

which is not to say that I am alone,
but to say that the past has run away with the future
and quite possibly left me to loneliness.

does one say goodbye before flight
if they are unsure they are fleeing?

there were no farewells.
only the soft hum of
all our old, tired words
resting in a graveyard of antiquated
conversations.

here I am
lying in a mess of sheets
thinking of all that's been lost in this world.
white heat saturating the air
but the summer symphonies
of cicadas still perform for the night.
late July
has the season turned stale
or possibly too ripe for ingesting.
when, I wonder, do things become truly unbearable?

I want not to be stuck with clouds
of the past hanging over me
nor with winds of the future swirling
around me.
to be present.
to drink like the earth.
to offer like the sky
the ideal exchange.

I willed the city to drown in the rain.