it’s summer here,
and my seasonal depression
slips away with the waves at the beach.
my eyes brighten with the sun,
and at last, i feel my heart warming,

the leaves are falling from the oak outside of my window.
autumn. lets old loves go with the seasons,
stripping itself of the sun damage from summer.
shaking itself clean of scars.
(i’m healing old wounds)

in winter, i slip.
fall along with the temperature.
stiffen along with almost everything
that meets the cold,
why am i so cold?

i sprout a little in spring.
defrost from the frozen winters.
wait for the new.
i see the oaks' new leaves.
i see the flowers in me bloom.

it’s summer here,
and i begin to feel like myself again.
letting my heart thaw
and my limbs stretch.
(the cold can’t bite me here).

i burn myself,
cover limbs in dirt

wrap my shoulders in cloth
and bury the dead.

bury the aching.
and the singe.

suffocate myself
by closing the coffin lid.

hope it will smother
the scent of my burning flesh.

i'm tearing hot flesh from warmed bones,
this is not living.

i do not know how
to extinguish the flame of you.

i would rather burn
then drown in the guilt of letting you go.

my mother deserves more than the hurricane she was given.
i am certain that i am not what she signed up for.

she deserves flowers and fine art
and i am nothing but thorns and cut-throat.

so i buy her flowers,
constantly,
hoping it will make up for my rot.

hoping the scent of them will make her forget
the damage of last nights fury.