daynabhattiroberts.blog

i hold myself between time much like one holds themselves between two falling, collapsing buildings 

with arms outstretched and taut muscles and a mind that screams nothing at all 

because in the falling you can’t think, you just do, you just cry 

every year it is the same. my life is a pausing, waiting game until the sun finally begins to set 

a little later and later. trickling in the way i have always known time to be fickle 

and then- there it is. that freedom we were promised as kids. melting ice cream and zip up sweaters 

the cool water of lake michigan, because there is nothing like a midwest summer 

or maybe there is nothing like a summer that is all your own 

most of the time i run. from what, to what, hell if I know. i bound from continent from town from city 

but here, in this sweaty, sticky, popsicle lick of time i wish i could melt into the cracks of the sidewalk 

i stay here even when it grows cold again. what belongs to summer? everything. i belong to summer. 

you must ask yourself if you belong to summer, too. every living thing must 

much like the monarchs do. much like cicadas do. it’s that moment when you feel yourself growing 

and you hang between this promise of freedom and this promise of living how you should, how you must 

and you just wonder who decided we can’t all play in this cold water every damned day of our lives 

you belong to summer when you can’t seem to understand how others have it all planned out 

how do other people do it- this nonsensical cyclical thing. but i suppose summer is cyclical too 

it leaves, it ebbs, it comes back. i dream often of living somewhere it is always summer 

like when i was nine in asia and it was sticky hot every day of school and my uniform stuck to my 

prepubescent body.  no, no, it’s a different kind of heat when you must truly live as one is ought to 

summer is special because of it’s transitional aspect. it’s fleeting nature.

winter seems to go on forever but summer? summer is over before it’s even begun. it dips behind 

the rocky shores along with the sun and the warmth, it makes you bundle up by a fire even in july 

summer is fickle and so am i and so is time 

so, I ask again, do you belong to summer?