there’s something about summer in virginia, 

the way the water builds on itself little by little until on every third day 

when the sun is golden in the twilight 

the sky turns dark and the winds pick up 

and finally, like the first sob that escapes grief, the first cry that escapes fear, 

the rain begins to pour 

you feel the heat pooling under your ears after sipping the vodka hidden in your friend’s water bottle

and crane backward

look up and think

it’s the dark green grey of the sky at 1 am 

while the stars poke through the fabric stretched above you 

as your feet hold you down, delicately chaining you to the rooftop you sit on 

staring up at that endless, constant, maw

wanting to fall into it and escape 

escape

escape the Thing bleeding through my heart as it flows to my lungs and infects my ribs. it’s pulling taught and heavy, a stallion the color of blood-stained earth with no room to run beating away at me

in the place where my lungs meet each other i feel pressure

i can feel myself crack as i stare at the sky and the birds breaking it apart

it’s there, right in the center of the hollow of my ribs, that i know one day It will break free

and cut me to ribbons