spring into summer

it's all very fleeting

there are caterpillars falling from the trees and i come home from every picnic with bug bites on my arms. yet i am grateful for the sun shining and the flowers blooming in the park and my friends laughing beside me drinking prosecco mixed with tangerine juice. it was our friend’s birthday and they read a poem about friendship and i wanted to cry but i didn’t. i think for once we all understand how lucky we are to be here.

at the start of spring my friends dressed in flowy outfits and i took pictures of them all spinning arm in arm. the flowers in the field made everyone sneeze and i came home with dirt dusted on my knees, but it was the most beautiful time we had all had in a while. we looked at the pictures in a cafe and cried over turkey sandwiches and strawberry lemonade. my shoulders were sunburnt and covered in freckles that only show up during certain months of the year. the warmth seemed to permeate through everything.

in april there were big cases of watermelon at the grocery store and we brought one home and cut it for lunch. it felt like summer already, like a sign of good things to come. that weekend at the farmer’s market we bought mushrooms and made ravioli with fresh sage. we’ve been on a cooking kick, if you can call our 10pm dinners something intentional. butternut squash soup and red pepper pasta without a recipe. sweet potatoes with mixed greens covered in olive oil and vinegar. amidst the stress there are moments where time slows just for us. like when we sit on the steps watching cars go by in the dark. passing a marlboro gold back and forth, though we know that we both prefer reds.

the nights are cooler and our walks are longer. it always smells like star jasmine outside. like how it used to smell in front of my house when i would get home late, pretending to be asleep as my dad carried me from the car. i think it was night-blooming jasmine, the plant that we had. it would grow by where we kept our trash bins. i don’t know if that was on purpose, but now as i walk to the college bar we pass the white buds and i think of how home always changes. i don’t think i’d want it to stay the same.

may gave me writer’s block and it rained hard enough that i had to walk in the street on my way to class. the sidewalks were flooded. my hot coffee cost $8.88 after tip and i took that as a sign that things would be different soon. i made bad decisions in hopes of something changing. we drove thirty minutes to the ocean so i could cleanse myself of the feeling of sticky skin on top of mine. our heads bobbed in the water and eventually it was all alright, cool waves washing away any trace of guilt. promising words exchanged built into something real.

i think it usually gets better. my hair is blonder and the sun is brighter and the past grows further away every day. i’m pretending like this is how it’s always been. like i didn’t exist before this very moment. i look back though, somewhere between missing and mourning. everything’s more beautiful, retrospectively.

in june i walked into my old apartment complex and it smelled like the fall. like kissing at the back door or walking downstairs in my birkenstocks to let people in the building. missing or mourning? i’m not sure which. but we sold our couch and moved into a house built in the 1800s. it has cracks in the ceiling and a claw foot tub and it’s charming in a way that makes you ignore the bugs that get in through the windowpanes. it feels like home in a familiar way. home always changes.

i finished putting my posters up on the wall and a friend of sorts came to visit. i tried my best to make the four hour drive worthwhile. the weekend was all hands and mouths and sweating under bedsheets because our ac is broken and the part doesn’t come in until next week. we woke up with the duvet tangled each morning and it made me smile in a way i haven’t in a while. skin on top of mine that was cleansing in itself.

my poems are all in the second person again. i think i do it out of infatuation, something that thinks it’s love but isn’t. we walked under the street lights and i kept instinctually reaching for a hand to hold. i don’t know how to feel anything halfway. i used my last five dollar bill on the best photo booth in town, a promise of a memory that i could hold in my hands. mood rings turned blue and purple and i tried not to take it as a sign. i’m hoping the summer stays this way. playing joni mitchell on the guitar and eating dinner outside. string lights and rain and smoking out the back door.

i said goodbye in the morning sun wearing blue striped pj shorts. it felt strange, all this then nothing at all. so it goes. i walked back inside, but not before looking back one last time. you have to savor it, i think. beautiful times in short measures. i promise i won’t get too attached.