Summer: the students have gone.
All that’s left is the baked asphalt,
freshly paved, fumes rising
in the always heat. The parking lot
so vacant, it’s timeless. At night, everything
is so quiet, so still, I will mistake it
for coolness. In the morning,
the tar is as ever as sin.
Again, the blue sky is stretched
like an apology. I am living
in a heat trap of bad, my blinds
licked shut, the air stale and silent
so the utility bill can be the same.
My window faces north.
There are no sunsets
or sunrises. Hours are simply
tickers of temperature, the hot
frustration of the afternoon, the dewy,
limp feel of regret. I run, just as the day
begins to bruise. I leave nothing
behind and keep chasing my punishment.
The walk sign blues over.
I go because it tells me it’s safe.
I only want to move when I know
what lies ahead.

///
Thanks for reading! Check out Adam Clay’s Only Child and then go check out my analysis of the poem in my previous blogpost. The rules I made for myself are only loosely followed this time, I’m afraid. But that’s the beauty of it! Starting with a prompt and seeing where your voice takes you.