When You Fall In Love In The Summer

I met him in the spring, when the path of the mossy ground huddled in between hedges and fences, when shards of sunlight infiltrated through the random branches that showed its flaws to the world. We both lived outside the comfort zone offered by the city: in the other world with other sounds and other lives.

We lived through music that was meant to be danced to, drinks that were destined to consume us as two halves and two wholes, and a language that made use of different alphabets to convey what our exhales couldn’t. We tasted the evening breathes and kissed the perfumed winds brought to us by the strawberry fields.

It was as if the lovesick land mourned for the missing sun’s magic.

We fell in love in the summer, when the air lulled our senses to fit our indolence. We saw the skies turn to the lightest blue, and the lilies drooped to kiss the quiet steams running through the wild. We saw happiness break forth in songs and poetry, and laughter in tidal beats radiating from our ribs.

He set my restless mind in synch with his restless heart, and kissed my collarbones with every lingering thought. We learned about each other through giant strides and tiny steps, and traced our shadows with daisy chains made by the children within us. There was no sadness that could be found in our fortress of solitude, no hollow hole unfilled with his wondrous beauty.

But the cracks began to show themselves in the autumn, the season of mists and fruitfulness. We could not find the rhythm in the songs we sung in the spring, or smell the fumes of daffodils soft-lifted by the summer breeze.

In the stillness of the autumn night, he wrapped his arms lightly around my waist and whispered me a thousand apologies. I let his voice wash over me like liquid, all vital and beautiful but no longer holding me together like safety pins that offered a temporary solution. Love was fading out of our veins and poured onto different paths with different time zones and currencies. I heard the cries from the birds that were gathering in the sky, warning me that they were ready to take flight.

He had a tiny swallow tattooed upon his sleeve, and the irony was not lost upon me.

And now I prepare myself for winter, uncertain what the white-mossed wonder holds for a loveless soul in a city that aims to please. I let my ears hearken to the stillness of the somber air, and watch my footsteps leave temporary marks in the morning snow. I can see the evidence showing me where I have come from, but there is no prediction to the places I am wandering towards.

For I will try to follow, to seek, and to be the person I am meant to be, and all I can do is sincerely wish the same for you.