JULY

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it is july and it is four o’clock in the afternoon.

the sun bakes into the concrete and chlorine 

while i think about belonging and loneliness 

and honor and shame

and god and whatever the opposite of that is.

yesterday we got a new poet laureate.

i wonder sometimes if things lose meaning 

when the government signs off on them.

it seems like most kids have known how to lie since birth.

i’ve always played truth like hide and seek 

(terrified the whole time).

sometimes i hate myself for loving rules so much 

that i never got to be anyone.

now i can’t decide whether to blame it on two years of private school 

or something else i don’t quite understand yet.

i remember the day i realized that nothing looks more like sin 

than a church with the lights off.

i am trying to tell myself that not everything is a performance 

but it’s not my fault that god built the globe like a stage.

i’ve never told anyone that before

i say,

when i mean “it’s nice to meet you.”

i lost something here once,

i say.

do you believe me?