The Before-Time Was a Burning Church

Someone peeled the sky

and left the rind on my doorstep—

sun-wet, blistered,

still pulsing with god’s leftover breath.

***

The cicadas sang

like a power line trying not to confess.

I mistook them for joy.

I always do.

***

We lit sparklers in the drought,

choked down laughter like it wasn’t flammable.

The air twitched like a catfish in a cooler.

The sky was a throat clearing.

***

You said nothing bad ever happens

on an evening in July.

I believed you

because you wore your lies like insect bites—

loud, itchy,

already scabbing over.

***

My knees were bleeding again.

We said it was from the rollerblades.

We said a lot of things

like they were past tense.

But pavement doesn’t ask you to kneel.

And god never answered from that angle.

***

In the distance,

a bicycle lay dead near the fence,

still dreaming of a boy

who once pedaled in circles

to outpace his inheritance.

***

The air smelled like metal and peach Snapple.

Your palms were a dare I didn’t take—

a soft place to land, if I believed in landing.

Your mouth was a church I didn’t believe in

but still knelt inside

just in case.

There’s a hairline crack in the glass

we keep pretending isn’t growing.

***

There were buckshots

already loaded in our chests.

We didn’t fire them.

We didn’t have to.

We were the trigger.

***

We were right before

the deer runs into traffic.

Right before

the mirror forgets our faces.

Right before

the sirens become personal.

***

There is a shrine behind my ribs

built of melted plastic forks

and one perfect rock

I never meant to steal.

A photograph of no one.

A glass of heat lightning.

A receipt for all the things I didn’t say.

***

And I swear,

I almost told you I loved you

right there

in the sulfur haze,

the summer before everything caught.

***

I never believed in god,

but I believed in you—

the way blood believes in impact.

***

Your eyes were already looking

for the exit wound

I was born to make.

***

If I go missing,

check under the tire swing.

There’s a hole there

the shape of a girl

who once believed

summer could save her.