august is my favorite month of the year but looking back, july has always been a month of turmoil for me. maybe that’s why august feels like the calm, not quite like the way september smells of death at midnight, not that still, but like a deep breath—the morning after a hurricane, where the beach is just a beach again.

last july, and for eight more months after that, my only dreams were hers, and that’s dangerous, living in a hurricane like that.

when i was seventeen i worked a sweltering hot july at a local kelly’s roast beef drive-thru. one night i worked with a young man with a bit of southern twang in his voice—maybe kentucky, i reckon—and after a while we got to talking dreams.

he told me his dream was to move to a town somewhere warm and somewhere near the water, more specifically, a town that had just been devastated by a hurricane. i surmised maybe because the real estate would be cheaper, but he continued on before i could keep guessing.

“in the wake of that there hurricane, adam, i would just sit there and wait while all the houses were rebuilt and remodeled.”

“eventually,” he told me, excitedly, “well, everyone will have to buy brand new appliances, right?”

right, i nodded.

“and those appliances—refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, etc.—well, they’ll all come in giant boxes, right?”

right.

“see, i reckon i’ma rent myself a truck, drive around all day collecting them boxes. then, i’ll drive down the beach real late at night and build my own city in the sand. see, each cardboard box’ll be a building, and when i’m done i’ma watch the sunrise over my metropolis—the city of cardboard skyscrapers.”

“now tell me whatcha think of that,” he said.

and to be honest, it was the most honest dream i’d ever heard, and to be further honest, i hadn’t really a more honest one myself.

you see, needles in my arm never really scared me. it was always the thoughts behind my eyes that lay me awake at night. i reckon it’ll be the simple silences that’ll get me, when there’s nothing left to anchor to.

no hurricane. no july. just the space between dreams.