the summer passed me by
as quick as the spider that runs
across my bedroom floor when i
can't sleep at night.
catch me if you can it says,
reminding me of the
inevitable.
summer is like that,
it comes and you watch your friends
leave and you hug them and
you fill in the spaces of silence
inside the margins of your notebook
knowing full well that writing the same
sentence over and over does not make
the time pass any faster. but you don't care.
then they come home and sit you down and say,
"want to see the pictures i took on my trip?"
and you always say yes
when you always mean no
and you smile and you tell them
how nice of a time it looked like they had.
and when they ask you how your summer was,
you shrug and say "good"
when really you mean
uneventful, restless, fleeting,
unmemorable.
lonely.
you want to tell them about the two weeks
you spent home alone sleeping on the couch,
watching Disney movies,
you want to tell them how paralyzed you were
by lack of affection and touch and
laughter.
you want to tell them how the heat only
amplified that gaping hole, confirming
your sinking suspicions of always feeling like
you were missing something.
you want to tell them to slow down,
to listen.
you want to tell them how scared you are,
now that summer is over.
you want them to confess to you
how terrified they are, too.
you want to reach into their eyes and find
a river of undeniable resilience
that might sustain you for the next four months,
up until you leave this city.
you want them to spend the night with you
just so you can remember what it feels like
to be held, even if it's only for one night.
summer's almost gone,
despite the remaining heat and humidity.
you challenge the night with one-sided conversations
with yourself in the dark,
even though you know
that is the last place you could ever find
some clarity.
you count the backpacks on the children
and the number of minutes it takes
for a traffic jam to subside.
summer's almost gone,
and you are running out of places
to hide.