There are too many summer stars to count
in the black cradle of night
but still, I try to number them
like the reasons I’m enchanted
and eschew the old constellations
for new creations
of my own imagination

It used to feel romantic,
the rain in warm sheets around me,
legs crossed
and a deep desire to ground me

but as I let it surround me
it consumed me
as quickly as it had found me

so that the hopes I’d planted
rotted and were altered profoundly,
left maladapted,
pedantic and confounding