Air Quality Index

Canadian smoke covers the sun and makes me think about never being too far from a wildfire. This will be the third summer of haze and smog and learning to endure. Not much time has ever passed without pressing my hips to something soft and my arms around the edges: my desire has teeth, after all. I was sorry to have been such a dream woman while planning my way out.

Perhaps I can exist along this wait for something like cloudlessness. Tilt my neck back into August without thinking of injectables and silicone and hopeless pink rage. Without waking up to run ten miles against the wind and the dawn. Without using both hands to cling to being the most fuckable person in the room. I won’t ever be the smartest, either, but that comes with softer punishment. I gather the tendrils of smoke into washed white linens and lie down. The time will pass anyway.