i never want to know what time it is when we’re together. the days have grown limber and floppy and stretch into parts of the evening that i forgot they could touch. i press up against you in the newly declared subtropical air. outside has the texture of minestrone and every night i come home and slough off my salty, gelatinous membrane of sweat in cold water with unscented soap. i lay apple cider vinegar and dish soap traps for the fifteen fruit flies that besiege my apartment but i hate the smell of vinegar. i am perfectly unwell. every weekend it is three in the morning and we are at the white light twenty four hour diner ordering platters of overcooked eggs. your smile cuts into me, a tender knife. 

the city is overrun by fireflies and i am so charmed i almost forget that summer nights were never this soupy. climate change will kill the rich too, slowly and more comfortably. every conversation is about genai and i am bored. i want to talk about cooking with the oregano that snakes through the raised soil in my garden plot. i have lost track of everything that will kill me. anger calcifies, jagged and crusty. i read about florida and about genocide. every day i decide how large the life i carry with me will be. i split open cherries with my teeth and let the juice ooze everywhere. i mourn. i mourn. i mourn. everything left in the sun for too long will either harden, or soften.