Summer is warm days and nights

Sun beating down

Making cicadas buzz

And your soda sweat

Summer is good food

Barbecue smoke and checkered picnic blankets

Ice cream dripping stickiness down your chin

And lemonade pitchers with clicking ice

Summer is different places

Road trips down highways that go on forever

Burn-your-feet sand on beaches

And tents in the green woods

Summer is being with family

In the back yard playing ball

Marco-Polo in the ice cold pool

And taking a long hike with the dog

Summer is making memories

Tanning brown by the water

Gooey s'mores by the fire pit

And sweating buckets as soon as you step outside.

If I ever wrote

Bout bright blue skies

She'd look at the note

And then roll her eyes

If I ever wrote

Bout green green grass

She'd look at the note

And then just laugh

If I ever wrote

Bout rainbows galore

She'd look at the note

And then it would fall to the floor

If I ever wrote

A poem like this

She would call me a bloke

And raise her fist

If I ever wrote

Her a note on love

She would gag and choke

And then give me a shove

If I ever wrote

Anything nice

She would read the note

And then then give me advice

My sister is good

Kind caring and fun

And does what she should

When advice-giving needs done.

Old photographs

Collecting in moldy cardboard boxes

Their edges beginning to crinkle

Their pictures fading to yellow

And thinning

So when you pick them up

To look at them

They are slightly transparent.

Old words

Like a full hard drive

Or a long-forgotten notebook

Conversations long gone

Thrown into a metaphorical wastebasket

Crumpled up

Recycled

Never to be seen again

They dissolve

Letter by letter

And sentence by sentence.

Old colors

That slowly fade

So when you look at them

You think

That they don't seem so bright anymore

The feelings they used to bring

No longer coming

Until maybe they didn't happen

Until it definitely seems

No, feels that they happened

To another person

Because you've grown past them.

My head is full of dust

And boxes of moldy pictures

And disintegrating words

And fading colors

Cobwebs hang in the corners

And dust coats the floor

Until I reach into my head

And pull out an old photograph

Or word or color

And then I can relive it.

After all

They are what makes me

My adventures

My friendships

My work

My life

And I will always keep them safe

Stuffed in a box

In the back of my brain.

I will add new pictures

Until the old ones disappear into the bottom

So far down

I won't even be able to wade

Through the new ones to reach them

Forgotten and discarded

Because I can only hold so much

Inside my head.

Black cats cross paths

And bring bad luck

But only to those who believe.

If a black cat crossed my path

I would pick it up

Because I don't care about luck

And cats are cute

Black or otherwise.

Rhyming poems are hard to write

And to get right

See what I did there

I rhymed two of the same words which is hard on your ear

And that was an imperfect rhyme

Ok, I'm so done with rhyming words.

What even rhymes with rhyme?

Glass can be clear.

And reflective.

Reflectivity makes a mirror.

Where you can see yourself and how you look to others.

But what if mirrors showed how you looked on the inside?

Then, I think I would like my reflection better.

But maybe not.

Maybe I'm a bad person.

Maybe it's best that mirrors only show outsides.

Some doors don't have knobs

They are only on the inside

And they lead to rooms

Full of feelings

To access

Just say

Something kind

Or mean

Or anything really.

Because my doors can only be opened when I think it really matters.

Because my doors open when I'm really me.

Because my doors are what hides me from the world.

Because my doors matter.

When I fall try to fall asleep

Weird words flash through my head

Like sometimes

Hurricane

Kimberly

Parabola

So random

Making my mind wander

In the wrong way

Away from sleep and dreams

And towards that spark

That usually means

Good Idea

But I'll forget it by tomorrow.