blue

dead ends...decay...should not have been the words as spring crossed into summer. but how else should it have been? we never discussed that.

the city has started soaring above us again, lifting in a heat we are calling "global warming". i think of it as claustrophobia. and i think of claustrophobia as a feeling of people breathing down my neck- all of them pushing me into believing you will not return.

i've often thought of how you spring from my entrails, consume my fears and lie low inside me again like you never changed anything. but what's that to the city? the city, like I said, has begun to rise. i see it in the honking, the swirling of dust in the afternoon wind and the stench lifting from massive gutters that were once rivers.

the city has no memory of rivers. only the sewage now and the stone spouts that trickle drops into plastic containers.

the butcher's wife stands across the street and looks up at the sky, shielding her eyes with her hand stained in blood. With the other hand, she clutches her apron- soaked in blood. flies swarm her best chicken breast. she waves a hand at them and looks up a the sky again.

the sky is blue, blue, as though they draped an ocean over the city. not a single hint of cloud. the butcher's wife must love the blue.

but she turns away to look at the city and i follow her gaze.

i don't love the blue anymore. it reminds me of these endless spaces where i cannot find you. and the city is a constant reminder that you don't live here anymore.