i’m trying to be here. summer, we find, is full of beating hearts and smoke and seawater. our knuckles wrinkle and bruise. we’re the corners the brush didn’t stretch to; we paint ourselves duck-egg, dripping down the door, and colour’s left behind where we try and hide it. we’re always doing that: trying to hide our other selves. trying to cut off the past like we never needed it.
i feel a sickness in me. it’s the kind that doesn’t come from fever or sweat or bile but the kind that makes your stomach burn with nights forgotten. makes you drop your glass and mutter: ah. there you are.
we hear a song and freeze to hum it: a street in the middle of paris and the guitar swings, drips substance, strums a melody only you know in the way you know it. melt into cobblestone. flip the coin. toss yourself in his basket. the sun makes you burn to touch. he packs himself up and leaves you on the steps.
i’m stuck on that street. i froze time where i didn’t want it. the glass falls, moonshine in swamp-coloured liquor and all i feel is that night. my palms sting with memory.
ㅡ cove // kg.
