The air is a thickness that lumps in my throat and pools in me. God, this summer heat, it’s been steaming here for days and I’m all hot-sticky skin. When it was hot like this we used to hide out in your bedroom; we were naked bodies, pin-straight, arms at our sides, letting my window-unit sigh a steady stream of cold air over us. We’d breathe slow; fleshy, bumpy skin and hard nipples were the braille by which we’d read each other. We fell asleep deep inside each other on that first day in June and we’d awaken some time in September.
We were young, we were in love, and the days would slip by like the cold air between the cracks of our toes. Now, responsibility wears a heaviness in our backs and we’re still sweating in this heat—but now, no matter how hard we try to cool down, we just evaporate in this July air.
