My apartment hallway smells like summer. Hazy
& musty
& one-of-a-kind.

It’s the summer smell you only remember in your dreams
& every memory from June
& July feels like a silk curtain blocking the sight from your eyes
& you’re sun-kissed by my mother, who already hated you.

But it’s April.
& it already smells like summer.
It keels over your nose as you beg to breathe,
But I’m a capsized rowboat
& you need to crawl for mercy as the sand gets stuck between your teeth.

You wait indoors.
You gamble on the sun.
You ferret the hands around you, itching like a drooling dog.
You search for a morsel of meat, but it ends up burning your concrete tongue.
So, you settle.

You settle on eating small birds
& nesting bugs.

Then, you decide to play fetch as your apartment hallway continues to rot.
You pathetically sweat, or so you call it in the scalding heat of summer fun.

But it’s only spring.
So, I abide lonely, in my own dreams, as summer did for you last night.