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by Eliseo Martinez
Summer Suicide
The sun shines over the rooftops
screaming its burning agony through the deep sleep
of my bones, the skin of the sidewalks,
the voice of my waking days.
Where is the reason, the sound, of this heat?
How does it make any sense in our lives?
I walked home after leaving my bicycle at the
repair shop. The receipt for maintenance
tucked away in the small yellow corner
of my shirt.
This was the way I understood it:
There is no mercy given
without a price.
There is no end in sight
until all eyes are closed.
The music of these days barely fit
my clothes over my body,
walking home in a simple and perfect
summery ache.
I suffer as a fool as only
true fools suffer.
I’m learning it’s the only thing left
for me to do that I can
do well.
Suffer the days, the nights
alone underneath the unblinking sun.
This is a test of strength
of faith
of everything else I’ve learned
to lose.
Even now, at home, in the dark, my skin
is singing in an enveloping heat built like an opera house,
the acoustics of my body lending the summer
a perfect venue for its screaming
voice of heat.
Tomorrow will bring new shows
new sweat, new crowds
another shot
at idiotic survival.
I’m learning to fight without thinking of
victory.
That’s how these words
erupt from my hands and how
my hands rebel from my brain and how
my brain ignores my heart.
Who learns to fight without thinking of
home, without thinking of the wild winds
that even now blow through the blood
of a hot and tired body that is luckily
too foolish and stubborn to understand
the illusion of peace.
Burn, you fucking sun.
I’ll take it and I’ll take
whatever else you got.
It’s the only thing I was
born to do.
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