it's june in my faith-forgotten land;

the days blur together, a mix of bravery 

and brutality we don't remember choosing.

our heads aren't crowded with voices anymore—

just the salt air and the endless blue of the sea.

old lives try to catch up with the new waves,

 but they don't haunt us now.

all because we are still too old to grow up anymore.

but we do it anyway until september comes 

and mothers cry under the sliced moon.

remembrance is a wound gaping wide,

too deep to haunt us from within.

we carry shards of our past like ghosts of 

unshed tears, a continuous ache. 

hope is violent, hope is dangerous, hope is death. 

but dreams aren't.

so we dream of summers, green meadows, 

white frilly dresses, lovers tangled in the sheets;

the smell of home, mom's favorite perfume, 

the faint whiff of lemon and detergent in our clothes.

midsummer dreams consume us; 

the ache in our stomach grows stronger.

we scrawl "i love you" on mirrors with lipstick. 

the recurrence of death wakes up in the dead of july,

nights swirl with the warmth of blood;

maybe we're too damn old for this.

we met our lovers under the orange-washed sky,

or maybe it was ms. wilson's orange tree. perhaps,

they were just silhouettes against the liquid moonlight.

tattoos stay dead against our skin, red and blooming.

we toast to someone else's joy; can't remember 

what we used to laugh about anymore.

the sun shines like a glittering gold, but 

it already smells like the last days of june.

so why the hell does it feel like the war has just begun on our bleeding fingertips?