2/SUMMER

I can feel the resistance in the heat
The way my eyes struggle to find a direction
Leaves as still as the sun’s burning pleasure
Yesterday slips away like a faint recollection

Watermelon’s sap trickling down my chin
Spent hours on my sinking bed
The air above drifts away in disappointment
Painting stories in drama and dread

Summers can be so romantic
The lust for a world that never really existed
Pining in the shadow of a wandering cloud
My eyes all red and misted

I lie down on the playground slide
Tilted stage of a tilted world
The same sky that would spin round
Everytime the merry-go-round twirled

They’ve taken away the merry-go-round now
The stars make my expression all jaded
I’m forgetting the names of old friends
All the souls my youth invaded

Addressing my artless expression of misery
“Of course we’ll keep in touch”
Doesn’t that imply moving on forever
Doesn’t that imply the loss of so much

My Anne Shirley fantasy lost in city lights
Dancing and drinking we never did
Even as I’m hurled towards eighteen
Can only think about us as little kids

As graceful as I can ever remember
Your heart beat as warm as this summer
Most senseless jokes get you creased up
But you’re as discerning as ever

Painting the world in all its conceit
Never letting go of the perfect pipe dream
Straight shooter, levity’s intruder
The face of the next great regime

A soul of mirth, a soul who’s lost
Lost because you can’t fathom greatness
The pulse of a generation’s hope
Lies misunderstood by those charming faces

Beautiful people
Saving the world
Beautiful people
Saving the world
Beautiful people
Saving the world
Beautiful people
Beautifully undisturbed

Once I’d confessed to a sprawling tree
That I’d been in some twisted love
“When all you wanted was to be wanted”
Something I knew I’ll never be above

I used to cry when you were moving on
But it’s too hot for the tears not to burn
Instead I try to rhyme arcane words
A life’s worth of poetry I’ll never learn

I’ll stand at the docks screaming goodbye
You’ll turn towards the orange purple sun
And the wave of tears will crash the shore
My world will slowly come undone