the missing parts

i think that this isn't true; i think that maybe it's my empty stomach growling out its annoyance at me, that it's also the realization of an end to a summer which has been all about endings. the leaving is easy and the arriving is always hard and everywhere i go i almost have second thoughts and turn back. and maybe i live by the thought that leaving is easy but lately i have a sneaking suspicion that it's less manageable than i think. as long as i keep filling up my heart with more people and more places i won't have time or energy or cause to miss any of them i tell myself until suddenly i do and there are so many there for me to miss.

in the summer

walking around out here takes me back to summers when we were little and the world was our playground and we rarely left home aside from the occasional library trip but life was a series of expeditions and games, exploring the creek, smearing pokeberries to stain our skins purple, poison ivy and scratches and scrapes scarring our arms our legs while we ran home muddy-faced and tired to big bowls of pasta and fresh summer salads we'd help pick from the garden; baths and bedtime stories with my dad sitting on the banister outside our rooms spinning sagas and fairytales into paths for our imaginations reading in bed by the light from the window on those long summer nights, dancing with my sister across the space between our beds and whispering inventions into each other's ears behind tangled hair in the summer, in the summer.

tomato

you are beautiful you
are if i could sum you up in a flavor i'd
wrap you in a tomato skin just firm enough
seeds pulp and all, juicy and bursting with
summer, with sweetness and boldness and
just enough tart taste on my tongue
a freshly picked tomato still dusty from
the garden, new and ripe and
delicious

phone call

i don't want
tears on the other end of the phone line
tears and unraveling