September 1, 2023 - Elizabeth Lerman’s “Here is a month”

Here is a month meant to be forgotten. You are trying not to see it as a waste of time, but rather, a period of preliminary moments. There is something wrong with this September — summer is sticking to it the same way I am sticking to the plastic porch chair that should be nailed down or thrown out. 

You lay in bed that night and think about all the ways people disappear. The purposeful sound of go missing — like it’s something you might do on a Sunday afternoon when fall is nowhere to be found, and I know we cannot evaporate, but I wonder what the next closest thing is. 

Tomorrow you will buy a hammer.