Just a quick poem I wrote last year.

The sun feels

The way love should:

Warm, light, and invigorating.

 

But being in the sun takes work;

You must find your skin’s balance

Of sun and shade

Of sunscreen and pool breaks

Of tan lines and aloe vera.

 

For the sun can also feel

The way love sometimes does:

Hot, thick, and enveloping.

 

Now I don’t mean hot

In the sensual way—

But in the prickly,

Creeping-up-your-neck kind of way.

 

And thick in the way

That too much sun makes the air feel

As though its density has become far greater

Than that of your last inhale.

 

Enveloping you

Like the hot sun does

When your shadow becomes the only proof

That the sun is not torching you from every angle.

 

That is the way love can feel

If you don’t put in the work

To find your heart’s balance.

// HKL