Melancholy 

I slice up a melon-choly and hand it to my brother over the phone in the space between our sentences when we don’t know what we’re going to say next because he’s sixteen now and we’re both in the process of becoming something.

The melancholy is ripe and I nibble at the rind like I did with sandy cantaloupe of late July when my father my brother and I would cut the fruit into smiles and gnaw on all the teeth down to the gum.

For both of us it will always taste a little different. So I’m already wrong to describe it. For me it was

Tangled leashes of wilting balloons

cold stale soliloquies of movie theater popcorn still sauntering about the carpet like blind mice

pink carcass of cotton candy on the kitchen table bleeding unlit fireworks

times I have neglected to slice up honey dew moments with my brother

and leave the rinds in the sink.