(p.s. august forever)

written in august of 2021

august is hot.

august is sticky;

it’s a slow trudge downhill the metaphorical year.

august is sleepy,

like plantation ladies on a wide porch fanning themselves and sipping iced tea.

august is the messy part of exfoliation,

a mess of dead skin and the

longing for a refreshed,

new feeling.

august is not knowing if you’re going to get there,

it’s being lost in a fog, dense and wet and indiscernible—

left and right and forward and back.

august is hard,

the newness of the year is

gone and the excitement for the next hasn’t arrived yet.

august feels inescapable,

a lazy acceptance

of all that is difficult and immutable

and compunctious.

august is that moment

in the bath when

the water gets to you and goes from

comforting to suffocating.

It’s the embodiment of perspiring

disguised as pacifying.

august is languid and dismal and

everything you need but never

what you want.

But mostly, august is over.

lat