Fever Dream, revisited

In reality it is mid-July.

The cicadas hum

loud in my ears, angry

underneath my feet.

Sand scrapes across

my skin still red-tinged

and branded by this

east coast sun, this

small-town haze and

reverie. Unfiltered

sunbeams make me

passive and it is easy

to forget the way my

bones ache for Appalachia.

Poseidon's hands tug

on my sea-castle with

the strength of a thousand

horses I'll never ride,

and in this hallucination

I see myself drown.

In my head I still smell

the salt and feel the sting.

The way a boy on a

different ocean says

my name so honey-winged.

The way a tempest

churns and pleads to sing.

I have no more memories

of concrete jungles and

Deep South heat—I am

built from the sand

I will return to. I leave

my body behind to

sink in the Atlantic and

wonder when this beast

will in turn leave me.