In summer we lay on couches
Like dying animals.
My family reads to pass the evenings,
And the mornings, the afternoons.
Books stick to my hands as I
Sink deeper,
As I soak them in and keep those inky squiggles
Patterning my palms like a mark of
What I’ve been through, alone.
I only walk to pick up more,
So that I can
Dry my tears as best as I can.

Those novels are like towels
To my summer skin, so slippery
With wishes for winter
Sentiments of snow
Dreams of darker days
When the trees are bare and beautiful.

And the forgotten books, those are the ones that really
Don’t want to leave.
Other fingers shake them off hastily, only making those
Thick volumes want their touch more and more.
Unfinished stories never want to be discarded,
Never want to be such a banality as to
Cower on a dusty shelf,
Their insides rotting.
No, they want to save us from this.
So I read them, again and again,
Wishing that maybe there was something else for me.
But there’s nothing in summer –

I am nothing in summer.