Summer

Alyssa Ubaldo, Philippines

i hope that summer
wears my flaxen sundress
when it creeps into the pastel
bedroom of your sweetest
two-year-old.

i hope it pirouettes around
your wife's boudoir and leaves
a scent trail of my old perfume
and that distinctive sangiovese
tang in every corner of her
lips

and i hope you shiver.

God, i hope that every fiber
of your flesh shakes at the smell
of damp soil
and my mouth
and my rotting limbs and torso
dwelling in the lungs of summer
for a year now

until you sink down
to your knees
and weep

as you exhume
my corpse from
the sodden ground
of this

quiet woodland where
you ripped my sundress off
and murdered me for
screaming.

Alyssa is a Filipino writer and a junior in college. She writes prose and poetry– fiction, mostly. Some of her works have been published in literary pages on Facebook. Aside from writing, she also enjoys listening to music, reading, and watching movies.