Monday, September 11, 2023

Heat Wave - Sept 8 2023


Heat Wave

Sept 8 2023



The night stayed hot.


Thick stale air

was trapped between the superheated ground

that had been baking for days,

and a low ceiling of cloud

that seemed stranded there,

as if, like me

it was too drained to move.


No relief

and nowhere to escape.

The cool nights

that had always rescued us

from the scorchers, and heat waves

and long summer days

never came;

we sweated blood,

lying exhausted in our beds

taking rapid shallow breaths.


Like an earthquake,

where the solid ground

we've always counted on

threatens to swallow us whole,

I felt betrayed.

As if Mother Nature

had turned on us

for paving over her world,

and living

with reckless abandon

our small luxurious lives.

Because after the ground under your feet

shifts and trembles and breaks

it feels as nothing

can be counted on again.


Instead of merciful cold

death by heat;

just like the Hell

we always imagined.


Betrayed.

Not by nature

but by ourselves.


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