Cicada

Wake up to an open window and summer split ends
Last night and the cigarette grit still echoes and bends
I still taste you under my tongue
I don't want you, but you linger in my lungs

It's been months now, we're nearing on November
But sometimes to fall asleep, I stop to remember
The curve of your cheek

The sparsely filled subway car when midnight had passed
Giving thanks to the slices of sky as I maze my way back

There in the gate kept garden
Across from the alleyway stairs
Under the light of the corner store
You tucked a lock of my hair

Am I glowing yet?
Am I going to rain? I feel a monsoon in my chest
Drip to my knees
Believing again

Now I'm enveloped in yellow
I still dream I have insect wings
Reaching for creatures in make-believe lands
I speak through the worlds that I sing

The bugs below hum to the stars
I keep our New York night in a jar
Maybe some day I will go back
Maybe it's best when I dream from afar

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a cicada
Only emerging for moments like these
Only knowing how to sing in the times in between

It's been a long many years underground
I shake my shell, I make my sound
Awake to the world and I'm here to remember aloud
I remember

There in the gate kept garden
Across from the alleyway stairs
Under the light of the corner store
You tucked a lock of my hair

Am I glowing yet?
Am I going to rain? I feel a monsoon in my chest
Drip to my knees
Believing again

Am I floating yet?
Are my feet on the floor, or am I suspended in night?
Wings on my back
I flit like a kite