I organize books on multiple bookcases in the upstairs office.
The oppressive heatwave crushes any hope for relief,
I am pressed beneath the summer scorch and my eye catches a pile of rock and roll magazines from the 90s.

Familiar and forgotten faces grace covers and pages. 
A wave of nostalgia brushes my cheek —
I guess it was attracted to the soft skin,
Like a venus fly trap, my salty, sticky sweat won’t release it.
I close in on its naivety, anticipating how sweet it will taste after I kill it.

A calendar in the back of Circus magazine reminds me that I celebrated my birthday on a Tuesday–
forever marked by sharing a week with Kurt Cobain’s supposed suicide
(people still speculate).

I took a deep breath and flipped through the pages, 
I stared at colorful crowds– not a cell phone in sight. 
Youthful faces drenched in each other’s sweat scream from their acne pocked faces.
Commercial beauty hadn’t fully infiltrated the repugnance of our youth. 
This truth, captured without consent, remains the evidence we bury deep,
careful not to grace heavenly, pristine digital spaces–
at least not without a touch-up. 

The heat rises, falls, and crowd surfs through the stifling air
It feels just like those concert halls–
I can hear the crowd roar (or is that a fever playing tricks on me?)
Back then, I didn’t know that I’d be more likely to celebrate my birthday on more Tuedays in what we often called “the new millennium”–
a name that fits like a faded pair of JNCOs.

It’s hard to believe I may boil alive in this room;
Good thing it isn’t Tuesday.