Summer

This summer is tiresome. I feel it in my soul. It has dipped its red and bony finger into my consciousness and poisoned the last little mired pool. Each day is spent in excruciating emptiness and unquenchable longing. My senses are beaten and raw from the heat. I try daily to muster some deeper defiance of the relentless pressure to concede. It is vanity and fear and denial which drive me now. I pretend to be on a journey to a better place, but I know the lie too well. I know that when I wake, I will have gone no further than my own salted skin. I lay in sweat and grief groping in the blinding light for some small relief. I find none and continue. I plod on in despair of my wits. I am without hope of hope. A dessicated smattering of flesh on an endless pavement, I roast beneath the merciless sun begging the searing winds to rise and blow me away from here.