when later this year weather is what I want
there’s the feeling of falling behind with
time when every task feels
a little more taxing
this summer my hair
nearly black with each asphalt layer
along the street where we split geodes
to start septembers
we named our writing
after fruits like pomegranate named shit
fringes to feel more like poets
thinking tarantino films were good
because you hadn’t seen valerie
and I wanted to be bad
dared each other
kicked off swimsuits with white feet swishing
wrinkled in the teal chill before going
cold as corpses
I rolled sand from the creases of my thighs
sucked lakewater from split
ends cards from you curled wet then
dried out in a shoebox
when my house caught on fire I grabbed it
and months later a girl in a smiths
shirt passed you and you thought she was
me which is cliché, I know
Plus-one
I try to hold it all in a paper cup
but
I cry at the wedding anyway
partly because the sky has turned the color of cream
partly because you put your hand on my shoulder
and I am jealous of the bride’s ankles after
toddling through the grass in my heels. I think
maybe smearing a mosquito
across your forehead to get your
blood back
makes me chivalrous and
one day when the hairline
breaks the way you
chip
the ice cream cone I’ll still
spin circles round the axle of your forefinger,
dress dampening at the seams.
I cry at the wedding
partly because it’s too quiet to tell you that the Spanish moss looks
like periwig ponytails and I know you’d love that
partly because you are like doughnuts at work
partly because you are like a shiny bar of soap
but
mostly because in the waning light, when I rest in the
bluish curve of your neck, I catch
you quarter-folding your
handkerchief over and over and over and
Emily Murman is a poet, illustrator, and educator from the northwest suburbs of Chicago. She holds a Bachelor's of Arts in Writing from Lake Forest College and graduated in 2018. Currently, she’s an MFA candidate in Poetry at National University. Emily has been published in Milk + Beans, Okay Donkey, Cease Cows, Peculiars Magazine, The Green Light, and Déraciné. She can be found on Twitter @emilymurman.
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