mei

strange how summer happens so fast, how the air is gray and sharp one day, sun-thick and lolling the next. the flowers are each events, drops of food-coloring twisting knots in the crevices between rocks. the temperature doesn't actually change, because there are blankets and parkas and overheated fast-food restaurants in the wintertime, ice and skirts and running in the shade in the summer. sometimes i break into apartment-building swimming pools late at night and submerge myself, quietly, in the corners. nobody ever notices.

i've found a friend, a little mutt-dog named dal. someone was giving him away because her boyfriend was allergic and i don't have allergies or boyfriends, so he came with me. he's very dark brown and very soft and opens cupboards with his nose but never misbehaves. we eat table scraps now, from recently abandoned tables on the sidewalks outside of cafes. dal likes the pickles that people leave after finishing their sandwiches, and i like the hashbrowns that nobody seems to be able to finish. we never go back to the same place twice.

sometimes i toy with re-entering normal life, but i can't figure out why i would ever want to. i sang a spanish love song to a girl on the street yesterday, from my perch in a tree. she looked around and around, but like most of them she never thought to look up.