This summer evening
Gasoline and cigarette smoke
Heat simmering off the pavement
Hazy smog, sluggish breath
Heavy with suffocating sweetness
---
Mom and Daddy in the kitchen
Screen door showing
Furious whispers slide through
Glistening darkly,
Like spilled oil.
---
Sister across the street
Sitting in a hot, dark room
Gossiping nervously with her friends
Tension thick and overpowering.
Things everyone knows, but will never say
---
Brother lurking on the sidewalk
Hands in pockets, hood pulled low
A red Volkswagen creeps through the heat
It stops at the edge to admit its final passenger
Then sulks off into the growing twilight.
---
Shapes of neighbors in screened windows
Shimmering mirages slog through the road
The clunky air-conditioning in the house next door
Roars and coughs to a ragged life
Offering feeble protection against the thick, warm air
---
And I
The figure on the roof
Silently stifled by the heat
Silently broken by the people around me
Silent, though we all know what goes on
In the shadows of my house.
---
And I
Have cried and screamed with no sound
For so long that I am
Numb.
This heat does wonders to the mind
My thoughts are sluggish and dreamy.
---
The ache in my chest has faded
Replaced with emptiness
Reason is slow to come
A twisted tranquillity, almost delirium
Soaks into my mind.
---
And I
Feel so close to something
Something that I've never realized
But always known
Something that hurts just to
Think about how this is my reality.
---
There is no escape.
---
---
---
This summer evening
Gasoline and cigarette smoke
Heat simmering off the pavement.
Hazy smog, sluggish air
Heavy with suffocating lies
YOU ARE READING
Scratching the Surface (Poems)
PoetryUPDATE: I wrote these when I was 13 and depressed all the time. I'm 18 now, and, fortunately, life's been going well! Unfortunately, these poems are fairly cringe, so read at your own risk. Just some poems that I write when I'm in the poetic mood...
