July again

July again
and everything is garnished with a distinct and unidentifiable wink of significance. i am in a permanent state of caps lock, flower myself like a fresh grave. like a grave, i am rose-flourished and love-buried. finally less tomb than temple, my body is a cathedral of impulse, perfume and sweat. its hard to remember in moments like these, that neither pretty nor personality come to me naturally. i peel my acrylic fingernails off and slather peroxide over my scalp yellowing my roots for solstice. finally 18 and not sure what i expected. my birth name is more zombie than dead yet I allow myself to find meaning even there. finally 18, and i have officially smoked my life into a stereotype; my poems had sharper spirit when i was 16. i have more success in living like a poet than being one. i'm leaving soon, away before sweat of summer even is. i have secrets to write about and none of them are about quitting. i swell with joy, it's not a symptom, i see where love could root and do not feel the need to immediately name it. poet / addict / paranoid i am, there is always something to haunt / be haunted by. july again and i am at the part of the poem where i do the leaving. it takes only a glimmer of spark for my departure to taste like promise. it tastes more beginning than ending. july again, and almost everything is euphemism for love.