the plague years

if life is the default setting and pain the confirmation that we exist, where do we put phantom pain and the half-remembered lies we tell ourselves about our bodies as they speed toward entropy (other than wires crossed in the dark, out of sight and mind)

california in the summertime
sun
heat
dry
tooshort night
early sunrise
never enough time for 5k before the sun
sneezing
sunscreen
icecreamsticky hands
ac all night
smoke at first light
because summer lasts until the rain starts.
(an endless cycle of heat - a looping madness
no power
battery fans
humidity that has no place in august let alone october
and a state that tries to kill itself
in an endless cycle of the definition of corruption
masquerading as ideal)

baseball on a weeknight:
stands fill late, leave early
the prospect of extras
both alluring and abhorrent

dead grass
dead tablet
dead dreams
now how am i supposed to
feed my terrible fanfic habit?

it smells like summer before spring has finished

california gothic:
-ghost towns
-dusty streets
-saloons that have always been there
-foggy mornings obscuring everything not right in front of you
-and the hauntings of the places
that exist just out of time