Summer, that dreadful beast,
It slithers in, linen stuck to its back, sweat pooling on its calves, and it smiles.
But it seems to you more like a grimace, like it is baring its teeth just so you know what awaits for you if you get too close.
So you stay inside, keep the windows at your back, crave a merciful human touch and swallow orange pills,
electing to not think about the rancid, drooling grin behind you and how many daggers it holds in its mouth.
Electing to not remember that you will be stabbed by every one of them before the season ends.
Everyone else looks at you, their eyes filled with red beach towels and glittering sleepovers, but you can only shake your head.
How could you tell them that your heatwave is not joy sitting on a lawn chair holding a cold drink, but knee-length shorts, bile rising in your throat at the sight of your hips, and begging for a pair of hands to choke you?
No, your summer is not like theirs.
It is the always ill-conceived comment and the curdled half-and-half hope that maybe, just maybe this time will be better and the wound might not be so angry.
They curl their upper lips, teeth stained the red of a cherry popsicle, and tell you to just get out more, to just hang out with friends, to just make an effort to be happy!
You do not know how to tell them that these things do not exist in shipping containers or bathrooms you cannot let yourself cry in.
You try anyway, but the heat makes it worse.
The words evaporate in a cloud of steam before they leave your unused larynx.
The lipgloss-clad happier-than-thou’s can’t feel the iris-burning sun when they leave you.
You cannot even bring yourself to blame them.
Your poor attempt to let loose in a crop-top could never be their friend.
They turn around and climb through their cheery bathing suits into a body that feels like a home.
You blink away all feeling and skitter back into your second, third, fourth skin made of packing peanuts and brass.
The orange pills do not work on this one, the drooling beast reminds you.
You cannot elect to leave, it whispers, breath hot on your sweat-soaked neck.
Three more months of isolation, it chortles, and slips a tooth into your shoulder.
No one is there to see the blood running down your back, or the snot from your nose frightening you into thinking it is tears.
The walls of the warehouse cannot see you, and they cannot hear the beast.
