These oppressively hot, humid nights,
alone
with my thoughts and the heat in this premature summer.
Thinking how friends continue to scatter,
progress, bloom
into adults.
And I’ve somehow failed to climb out
of the liminal tweens lifestyle,
eight years in the same city, vaguely grounded
yet stultified, underpaid, underwhelmed.
Balancing part-time work, half-heartedly
pursuing dreams, boyfriends,
life. Desperate for change
yet afraid to be hopeful. Treading water,
staying afloat but receding,
relinquishing days to inertia.
Wondering if I’m a traitor
to my sign. A Capricorn
is apparently industrious, ambitious, driven.
Yet we also do things on our own time.
Ah. I must be a late-bloomer, I am one of those
fragile, erratic breeds, prone to sickliness,
then unsuspecting growth spurts.
I’m subtly subverting tradition, waiting
to eclipse the heat, approach my own version of adulthood.
Rachel Carbonell is a writer, artist and teacher living in Brooklyn, New York. She maintains a blog, and has been published in The Vagrant Literary Quarterly and accepted for publication to the shady side review and cliterature. When she is not writing or teaching, Rachel enjoys exploring NYC, biking, seeing live music and spending time with her friends and kitties.
