déjà vu / jamais plus /

Cicada crescendo

August always blurs.  And I feel my mind betraying me, spilling out around the edges and into the ground.  The weather has changed, and revolving around in this chair, spinning in circles outside the sun, I sleep.  At last, things are what I'd almost liked them to be, and all the wasted time vanishes with the summer.  

Who will water the plants while I'm away?  This garden might never dry up, much as I want it to, because I never leave.  How many faces will float before me as I sit here, as if I'd already been to every country, restless in dreams and lethargic in life?

So why search for stale words to describe the lingering light, the way the shadows are getting longer? They're right here in front of us.  Sidewalks splinter in the fading heat, and there's not much left to say, anyway.

Except that the way time has slowed reminds us of when we were children, our apprehension gathering with the leaves beneath the trees.  But that was when each day was separate. Now we attach so much to passing time, which has become so heavy that it barely moves at all.  Rather, drifting soundlessly through houses, it floats in between the shifting particles of dust in the sunlight.

And the air inside has become stifling, the creaking beams of this house exude months of stored-up heat.  Outside, the sun vanishes earlier than usual, sweeping back curtains of clouds to reveal a slow-motion encore: two full moons in the month of August.