heat like this

I saw the sun sink behind the trees in the washlands multiple nights in a row.

This sci-fi week in which days upon days upon days are filled with blistering wet heat and daily swimming is… almost over? I don’t know what to feel. There’s a specific sort of person who feels locked up in a heat like this and that person is me.

My soft body is slowly relaxing into the evening breeze. My shoulders are stiff. My belly is warm beneath my fingers. When the heat takes over we become bodies. It’s impossible not to listen. I end every day with a pressing headache and at the same time, I live for these balmy nights at the river. I saw the sun sink behind the trees in the washlands nights in a row.

When I’m in the washlands on particularly scorching days, I’m in a film. I let my body surrender to the yellow of the heat. Sweaty feet in sandals on the crack of the ground. Treading carefully between nettles and hogweed, I’d rather be scratched by brambles. I’m wild in the washlands. Careless. In tune. My skin cracks open and reveals itself to be of the earth.

I’ve been sick for a week. My nose fills up like a tank whenever I’m near an airconditioned room. Every ounce of salt seems to be leaving my body. I alternate between feeling listless, annoyed and completely zoned out of the world. Then, sometimes, I get a burst of energy that reminds me of my body pre-heat.

Is this the future of our summers? Writing crabby poetry trying to give meaning to the way my body experiences the sun? I feel angry. I want to rewrite this narration.