Those are crickets in my heart

I know about being young and beautiful
and how it is about
stealing summer
for yourself
with sticky mouths and sticky hands
and juices down the chin.

Your dress will be damp
and bits of grass
will stick to us,
and I will be able to feel you
under your clothes
and how your skin is the same as mine
when the sun makes it smell
the way summer smells,
streaks of your hair in my eyes
and in my mouth,
my fingers clenched wet,
my ear to the ground,
with ants parading
all over our faces.

Nothing will ever take away my fever.

I can see
how we incite the gods
on grass lawns and hot pavements,
with melted ice cream,
slabs swollen together,
their concrete tongues piled on top of each other
amongst the weeds confused,
when there we were,
spitting on old worries,
dead and rainy days.

We won't talk
because we will hear our own voices for the first time,
and we will hate them.
Your throat will tremble,
the air thick above us and inside our lungs.
There will be dirt beneath my fingernails
and dust in the creases of my hands
but you will not care.
We will steal summer
and the sun will leave early,
because it is sick.

†