Everyone was watching the fireworks.

Multicolored bursts that sparkled the sky.

I was watching the moon.

A reproachful orb burdened by eons of witness.

Our lives pass in an instant,

So we take such joys where we can.

A silvery road appeared before me.

I looked back at the gathering and listened,

The rockets booming over threads of conversation.

Silently I set my journey and stepped

Onto the shimmering invitation.

Would my heart follow?

Small matter. It was not ever mine,

But only borrowed.

I approach the door of the sky.

I knock but it does not open. It is closed.

Like your heart. Like my eyes. Like any sense of hope.

The clouds deny its existence, as I cry out for it to stay.

I fall and hit the ground, only to see the door above me, opened.

My bitter tears form a river

And all below is washed away.

Outside it is hot.

But not like the heat I remember

From childhood when I lived in another place.

There the air would hang still and expectant,

As if waiting for cooling winds which never arrived.

When you tried to breathe,

Each breath would coat your mouth with sticky warmth,

As if trying to inhale a sweltering blanket.

You would hear repeated as a mantra of protection

It’s not the heat but the humidity!

We all knew it to be a lie but said it nonetheless,

As though from our lips to some deity’s ears

Would cause pity to result in an icy breeze.

And after the temperature reached a certain point,

We would not care which deity answered.

I think if any passing demon had promised the equivalent of airy AC,

Everyone would have agreed and offered their souls on the spot.

But this is not that place, and I am not sorry.

I can still go outside in the late afternoon

Without soaking myself in my own sweat

Or worry about heatstroke from checking the mail.

I’ll stay in the mountains.