102º

Mia Romanoff read "102º" on Sunday, August 24th at the Rudolf Steiner Bookstore.

It was the hottest day of the year 
The skin of his eyelids paperthin, cracking
The room was wet and guilty
Muttering and sickened, those walls 
Could never stare

I could see the bottom
Of the bay before he jumped
I fell right out myself on the way down

The heat tinted time an awful sort of fiction
Heavy air pushing me into myself  
The city, blistering
Wading through the streets, home 
of golden pus, the honey 
of infection wafting in the air

The lady at the nail salon counts my toes – ten
I assume, because she doesn’t stare 
I walk around the water on my way home, extending time
outside has a funny way of developing ceilings 
look like static when they fall apart 

Skin, it quivers
And it’s tomorrow but maybe it was still yesterday
And we’re dancing in the orange room
On the way back to Brooklyn we had to leave
Rail tracks turned ribs, rolling us under the river and back

It was the hottest day of the year
And he had told me a secret the month before
And it wasn’t a secret but it wasn’t something you say outloud 

It was heat, the collapse of things 
The melting of it all, wax settling 
Stale, wind of the train pushing beads of sweat down my neck

We were in the Fulham flat and I was staring at the ash tray 
And I couldn’t feel my toes, yellowing and tight – drained
And I couldn’t feel my toes, because the window was open to let out the smoke

“102º” Drawing by Joey Healey

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Mia Romanoff is a New York City native studying Comparative Literature at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She is the editor of the music magazine Hearing Aid and the co-host of Come to the Kitchen radio show. Her journalism has also been published in Alt Citizen. She is most likely to be found in the back of a movie theater, wandering a park, or bothering her flatmates in the kitchen.