Everything Tastes Like August

Some things weren’t meant to last—only to stain, spoil, and be devoured.

Jul 31, 2025

A sun-kissed mouth and chin dripping with juice from a bitten peach, evoking the wild, overripe intensity of August’s heat and hunger. — *August doesn’t ask—it devours. Let the juice run. Let it stain.*

By: Ken Lewis — Smoke & Pine

You don’t survive this season. You surrender to it.

August doesn’t knock.
It kicks the door in with dust on its boots, sweat on its lip, and a goddamn thirst that’ll drink you dry if you’re not careful.

You think you’ve got time, but you don’t.
The peaches are already soft.
The basil’s already bolting.
The air tastes like iron and pollen and something burning way out past the treeline.

Desire shows up mean and hungry, smelling like woodsmoke and compost.

This is the season when your skin sticks to everything.
Clothes. Chairs. People.
You can’t sleep.
You can’t sit still.
You eat cold watermelon with your fingers at 2 a.m. because you need something red and wet and alive in your mouth.

You lick jam off your forearm like it’s blood from a wound you’re proud of.

The kitchen is chaos.
Mason jars lined up like soldiers on the counter, waiting to be filled or fucked up.
You drop a jar and it explodes—glass and plum guts across the tile.
You laugh.
You don’t clean it right away.

Nothing’s sterile in August.
Everything’s sticky.
Everything’s loud.
Even the quiet things.

The crickets.
The sweat between your thighs.
The way he said your name once and hasn’t said it since.

This is the month for ruin.
Not death—transformation.

I’ve burned every damn thing in August at least once.
My shoulders. My biscuits. My bridges.

What doesn’t blister, bubbles.
What doesn’t spoil, ferments.
What doesn’t last, leaves a mark.

Bite August. Let it bite back.

You want grace? Wait for fall.
You want neatness? Go back to spring.
But if you want to feel something that makes your teeth ache and your heart break wide open—

Everything tastes like August.
Wild. Overripe.
Too much and not enough.
The end of something you didn’t realize was ending until the pit hit your tongue.

So strip down.
Suck the juice out.
Leave the stains.
Let it all rot beautifully.

This month wasn’t made to keep.
It was made to devour.