Kairosclerosis ✔ [poetry]

heat cage

11

HEAT CAGE

⸻

the summer started two years ago,

been stretching on ever since.

no end in sight,

no new beginning possible.

the winter passed like a feverish white dream

amidst the sweltering days and nights of relentless sun and warmth.

everything overlapped,

blurred.

an indistinguishable continuous stream of time and space.

autumn, winter, spring

just shimmering mirages at the refracted distance horizon.

when you opened your eyes,

you're still surrounded by the high-pitched cries of insects

in the middle of a hot, muggy july noon,

and above your head, the ceiling fan spun round

round

round like a record.

you hiked the hem of your cotton dress up high on your thighs,

ignored the sheen of sweat on your back soaking through the cool comforter, and sighed.

the summer dragged on—slow and tiresome.

You've always love summer more than any other season

—the love of a babe to a mother,

Unconditional and second-nature.

You were born in the south,

grew up in the south,

Raised tough and dark by the harsh, unforgiving heat

And menacing, blazing sun.

You still love summer now.

but lately, you have been weary of it.

The childish adoration morphed into a complicated dichotomy

of love and hate and need and loathing.

The heat crept up from behind you, foreign and alien in its predictability.

like the phantom ache in your knees after a long day of work,

like the straining turns of your skinny bicycle's chains as you struggled uphill;

like the unblinking green light at the empty intersection,

like the flashing front light of the lone car on the midnight road;

The heat became a constant presence you can't shake off.

Like the eerie mechanical buzz of the light bulbs hanging over the dining table

as you ate your dinner alone at midnight,

like the loud snoring and breathing of your parents,

sleeping in the room next door,

worn out from their job.

The heat grabbed onto you and refused to let go,

Quivering in the silhouettes of dozing-off people

at the bus stop waiting to catch the last bus,

Humming in the bright blue light emitted from your phone

as you watched the clock ticked past two o'clock

and a new dawn was breaking through the purplish sky.

Like an trematode, the heat's nails and palms and mouth drilled through parts of you,

Greedily leeching your life force,

Until the things—the routines—you took comfort in

suddenly became suffocating.

the cage you had learned to live in,

The peace you've made yourself comfortable in

suddenly distorted,

Deformed

A killing device, designed for you.

you felt sick in the head, ill in the heart,

Unfathomable parasitic feelings twisted up your brain,

indecipherable cancerous emotions coiled in your chest.

Piling up inside your chest, they festered and grew,

ensnared and tangled,

spreading throughout your body.

it was the first time you realised what others meant when they found the heat unbreathable.

you could feel yourself going insane

to each gasping breath you inhaled and exhaled,

to the churns of your blood underneath your skin,

to the pulsing heat clawing up your neck.

you wanted to tear your skin out and rip apart your flesh.

you wanted to run until your legs collapsed,

curl up into a ball and die under the midday sun.

you wanted to escape

from yourself

from the heat.

from the summer itself.