adolescence

the summers burgeon in rose gold beneath our fingers

a thousand days in our shadow folded 

crushed, like cherry wine

sparrows light the air with their fragile wings

offering feathers for our own

and birdsong to fill our veins—

speak, they say,

and the pink petals of our tongues break our days into words,

pressing our poetry to the sky.

june falls away beneath our feet,

bleeding the rays of the sun like a river

blood of light,

(blood of mine)

and lends us pomegranate seeds and sycamore trees,

rubies blossoming in the hot splintered shade.

we race like wild horses,

swelling lovely and untamed

so here we are: 

the brightest, fiercest portrait 

of freedom.

july unfurls its pages like a book of hymns

pouring ink to form the night, and now

our names are pledged to half-lights,

spilling cherry wine across the horizon.

here the sunsets sit like scarlet weights:

a laugh,

a leap away from adolescence

a month of red letters to the fading sky

(torn peace by the verses to autumn’s violent gods)

and now july 

has stained our hands

like a book of warcries.

august steals our breath away like smoke

and tears our sparrow’s wings

and shades away our crimson youth

until our throats are brimming with memories

(salves for our enduring dreams)

but we cannot move our lips.

ashes twine around our bones

and grind our teeth to dust

and catch our voices in the birdcage of silence

for adolescence is only an impression painted red,

which now fades against our pink-petaled tongues.

you said, speak,

and i said, let me sing your legacies.

now, the years lie trampled beneath our feet.

let me taste the rose gold of summer

and let me lift my wings—

allow me to press my lips to august’s sky,

to breathe poetry into june’s forgotten soil.

and here july will forever be our transition, 

our holy book

of warcries.