fever

sleepless deliriousness. is it night or morning; the increase in frequency of bird chirping drowned out now by a shabby sputtering fan. my sheets are wrinkled. i feel broken. and warm. new faces rouse spirit, blindly, all but the beginning of an end i feel. whittled thin. red collarbone. knee sweat. halved peaches and sticky fingers. katie's multiplying freckles. farm fresh brown eggs and meringue. i make friends at bus stops. an elderly peruvian woman asks if i go to high school and gasps and cackles at my revealed age, the italian blood!, she is certain. she waves me goodbye and i wish she were my abuela. a middle-aged misses with cheeks like plums and whitewhite hair. she shuffles in her scrubs, spouting the woes of inaccurate scheduling and her desperation for frozen yogurt. my kale has wilted. i want to go fishing with my father. even if there aren't any fish to catch. i'll borrow my sister's baseball cap because it's my favorite kind of green.