SUMMER IS A SOUL SUCKING SCOURGE

In honor of one of Phoenix's hottest days of the year:

                                       
I want to go out. But I don’t want to
leave my air-conditioned cave.
I am bored, but don’t want to move
into suffocating white light
that emerges too early from insufficient night.
It burns. BURNS!

White blinding sun. Acid light.
Heat withers my soul and every living form
that struggles to exist. Plants shrivel.
Errands can wait because existence is meaningless.
I feel weak and listless.

My mood sinks lower and lower
into deep wells of despair. Energy dripping out;
paralyzing inertia.
I take a nap.

 Sleepless night. A.C. anxiety.
Will it fail? The thin veneer of
civilization dissolving into sweat laden misery?
Tentacles of dread.

Fatigue permeates my pores.
Furnace blast air.
Heat beats resistence. Strength melts.

I drag myself out reluctantly. It can’t win.
I have to go run.

Probably reading a little low.

I AM SICK OF SUMMER

This is the worst part of summer in the desert. The earth is heated up from baking in the sun for months. The air is dry enough to heat up past 110 degrees, but it's not dry enough to cool off at night. August has that special combination that makes the heat more miserable than at other times in the summer. A week ago the temperature reached 117 degrees. I live in a desert and know it gets hot, but enough is enough.

                      I AM SICK OF SUMMER

Sweat. 

June denial. It’s not so bad. Cool mornings. Deluded reality. Thermometers gleefully bursts past 115 degrees, in a fit of spite. Dragon’s morning breath.

Plants shrivel in the outdoor oven and reach; plaintive arms to the sky. Desperate for relief.

The parched earth sighs.

White, blinding light sears the skin. Dogs pant, their heads droop.

Dripping sweat.

July despair. Heavy, stifling,  never ending suffocation. A.C. runs nonstop and swallows money.

Luscious, fat moisture of bloated cotton puff clouds entice; then vanish.

Gargantuan brown swirls of dust tentacles howl in. Lightning flares. Thunder rumbles. Trees blow over. A tornado of dead leaves. No rain.

Giant bugs stumble; meander aimlessly, confused.

Snakes hide. Lizards flee.

Dripping, sweaty sweat.

August disgust. Dispirited souls. Time stops in purgatory. Life is pointless. Outside tasks are too much effort. Monster heat feeds on human energy.

The sky rumbles and urinates.
The air cools, briefly bearable. Toads emerge from their holes.
A vicious sun re-asserts control.

Less sweat.

September hope. Summer loosens its grip, but still holds on. The glare wanes. Air softens. Summer birds leave, flying off to gentler climes.

Two months more and summer’s gone.

I can’t wait.