Electric hums
of nighttime bugs
keeping perfect time

a midnight chorus
echoing crescendos
to the sky

A stirring breeze
along the trees
precedes the
looming storm

The lonely autumn
thunderclap
concludes the
starry score

I’m already
nostalgic for
this moment while
I’m living it

It’s like I can’t
enjoy the now
without it feeling
transient

The opposite
of deja vu
where nothing is
familiar

If I am me
and you are you
then why are we
irregular?

When the
fever
rages

and the words
and the letters melt
off the
pages

and the chills
and the fire
consume my
body

and I’m not
sure I’ll ever
feel newly
healthy

I stop

But nothing else stops

And the world rolls on

til the fever’s gone

The sky
is a specific shade of indigo
and the trees
still have their leaves
and there is just
enough light
at 9 p.m.
to drag my hammock
out into the
chilly Sunday quiet

And I’m listening
to The National
and I know that
you’d be laughing and
telling me I’m
salting the wound

But when the wound
hasn’t healed
in all these years
and the salt
is still pouring
from all these tears
it’s hard
not to
just rub it in

So I’ll stay waiting