Summer Hours

On a day like today,
when every enterprise
be it a stroll or candy run
is interrupted by the warmth of summer,
I have to remind myself to choose to be alive.

The street lamp is striking a pose and
the grass outside is looking as alluring as ever.
Yet my mind is runny, and the trees that appear
as wishes and lollisticks have
melted from the summer heat.

It is a Monday afternoon and I’m watching
my best friend get ready for a wedding,
fidgeting through her closet like it’s a toy chest,
hunting last minute for something blue,
and I wonder what it must be like
to find that kind of contentment.

One evening she’ll be lying on some couch,
perhaps watching a film, or reading a novel,
soundtracked only by the prattle of crickets,
tucked away in a corner of her living room
and she’ll be remembering today for the wrong reasons.

When I woke up this afternoon I had
a mug of tea and found out how to
water my philodendron so that the color of the
soil matches the umber on the trees outside.
The leaves are laurel and moss.

Outside the community playground is overrun
by little hellions and their parents.
Every week they return like blue jays,
as if demanded by their own vitality.

I realize that when I categorize people I don’t see it as absolute.

There's a man across the street furtively smiling
at us through the window. He makes eye contact
just as my friend finds an old ribbon
that she waves in the air like a trophy.
She smiles at him while he waves back.

These are the things she won’t remember,
but they’re the things that keep me alive.

Stanley Lim is an emerging writer living in Chicago, Illinois. Stanley graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and his work has been published in Montage Arts Journal.