and so it's dawn
and so I'm awake and the birds
so quiet, summer growing
tired and weary
of itself. loving you is a room full of red light, we are dancing in it, everywhere we stumble there is laughter spilling out, cutting through the skin it's fragile seams, so I take off my bra and close the curtains and you watch me, like you are watching something being born
sometimes I catch you looking at me
like that like I am the only thing that catches the light. I look at you like that too, like you swallowed the sun whole like there is light pouring out of you
like rain, I think.
so, this is how things go summer walks into my room and every hour that I sleep I dream of the buzzing heat the mosquitos in the puddle of rainwater the decades between the rain
and us
slowly folding into themselves, mold growing into the bedframe as I hold you close and so it's dawn and we are whores
innocent girls in red light
strippers
bitches in heat and so it's dawn and the red light isn't red anymore the sun shining down on a burnt city. in the morning you are sitting at your desk
your eyes settling on the
ghost of me
she's dreaming of red things again
an apple, a knife, blood is also
red when spilled.
I am sleeping you don't look away. you like to see the sun rise. I look at you humming, in your room, yellow as a canary now black and blue in the morning and I say, the sun never sets. you look at me and smile. white teeth in the flashlight baby, can't you sleep?
there is a bird
crying from old juniper tree black crow in the blue light that comes with dawn so I put on your blue t-shirt and nothing else on and hold your head still against the pillow against my chest and you ask me, what do u want me to hear? "the bird cries,
now rest."
I whisper as you fall asleep.
