The Void Wants to Know How My Day is Going So I Talk About the Weather
Blood is warm; I miss mine. Miss my family playing Rummy until 2am. I was five and it was my
birthday. Ate so many Laffy Taffy’s I threw up in the kitchen. I smoke so much hookah I pass
out in the kitchen. Knife in hand. Cutting a pomegranate as large as my yearning. This year is so
sharp I cut corners — wound myself with worry and more worry. You were more carefree, says
my cousin. Remember walking through swarms of insects. Face first. Like we owned the whole
world. Like summer never ended until Zina died of a virus. Like I didn’t get this text just
yesterday: I think I have coronavirus. The days are too long, I argue. Translation: I’m afraid to
be alive. Translation: I’m afraid to die. When Lana sings Summertime Sadness, I cry, drunk and
on the verge of nothing. Keep asking questions. For what, I say? I’m sad. How else to tell you // I
hide my pride // keychain, I hide my pride // mask before my family asks questions. But let’s talk
about prayer. I never believed in God, but when I fell face first into a pit of snow, all I felt was
warmth. There were lightning bugs all summer. Our trapping them an act of cruelty. My skin
alive like thunder. It’s hard to stay sweet. Even harder to love that which does not love you back.
I don’t mean to grieve so openly. On the way to Edgewater, I weep behind my sunglasses. Stare
at a sun so yellow and bright I almost hate it. I want us all to make it. I want laughter as loud as
rainwater. I want hugs so warm my body becomes the home I never knew