as june should be

By Olivia C

i leave my thank you’s at the door,

through mailbox slots and with my beat up converse.

on those letters there are strips of my skin, chunks of my hair, rusty razors and pure intentions.

and when i arrive at her house i will drop my bags and kick off my burdens like im jumping into cold water.

(because that’s what love is)

you just have to do it.

and that’s not to say there’s a lack of nature in anything we do.

in fact, everything i do is just as the trees.

i flow and move and grow and wilt after all.

i like the ocean again,

and i began packing my bags early this time.

there isn’t much question to that.

because in june we reboot,

i get awkward tanlines and whine about how cold the water is—

but i am in gods greatest gift

(my soul, the earth, this body, this life)

and that seems like enough.

because as june should be,

i strip to my skin,

kiss a girl with pink hair

(that’s fading, unlike us)

i breathe the salt air in through my freckled spores

and bury my hatchets right by the sand dunes

and the beach toys my cousins and i left behind

so forgive me for not writing a goodbye letter;

i was too busy writing for myself this time.

forgive me for not learning to bend and twist

i was tired of the cracking of my spine,

i was trying to mimick lightning for you—

but the flash & risk scared you away.

no use for apologizing, storms come and go.

(results are always rainbows)

and ill remind you of the letter from my grandma and the rain in the thick wood,

that brought me back home to myself.

it might be too hard for you to understand,

so ill spell it for you

(in a language you won’t understand)

but she’ll dress my wounds while undressing my skin and tell me i am not complex,

nor something that needs to be solved.

and all of my ghosts stand in the window like specators to a stage,

and they will cry for me

(they cannot take myself from me anymore)

i am solidified, calcified, petrified wood.

the product of a storm who no longer cares about disaster.

(just being)