#123: Happily Ever Heatwave

welcome to my boiled brain :)

It is 101 degrees and the air conditioning is out in the apartment. Our patience shriveled like a raisin in the sun, except the sun strapped up and shot a bullet straight through our living room. While my impatient raisin rises particulate and chokingly fragrant from the bullet’s smoking hole, Adam rolls a grape along his tongue.

“It’s not so bad,” he says.

I could kiss him or shoot him with my own bare arms. My skin is hot to the touch. I can feel my hammering heart pounding me alive in this boiling body. I smile, almost, because I can choose to.

“Not so bad,” I agree.

Then we switch.

He sighs and suddenly the grape is plump against my teeth. I swing a slick leg off the couch. I cross the desert of room. My gray matter long melted into the floorboards.

“You need water, baby.”

I fill his glass. And I fill the glass filter pitcher hanging so heavy in my grasp I could shatter into the trillion tiny microplastics he bought it to avoid. But the grape tastes green. Once, we swam in a frozen lake I wasn’t sure I wanted to get in. I wade back to him.

“Thank you.”

He almost smiles. I set the oversized cup on his desk. He brings it to his lips. And drinks.