I double over like the first fold of a paper plane.
In my bed, I clutch my stomach.
Autumn turns outside my window.
The leaves, sun-freckled and time-burnt,
threaten to spiral downward.
I watch them,
I dare them,
I trace them down a path that looks awfully like your spine.
When I dream about us,
we are facedown in the dirt
counting cicada corpses by fives; else I’m
waxpaper skin and crusty blue eyeliner,
sitting naked on the stovetop,
and you’ve got one hand on the control knob,
the other on my thigh.
Like the freckled leaves, I tremble under your palm,
and what was once a summer joke settles
into a familiar autumn ache.
Summer fades, and I am afraid.
The season turns, and nothing is over.
Race Harish is a seventeen- year-old writer and poet from Central New Jersey. Their work has been previously published in The Cloudscent Journal, StudentKind Literary Journal, Girls Right the World Magazine, and The Writers Circle Journal.