A blue summer

“Ask me in December,” my darling whispers to me in bed. I'm cold, shivering under the blankets. Under the second part of our story with us possibly dead.

“Why are you so cold? Come closer to my side,” Duck cries. I can't hear his crying nor can I see it in the dark. I feel the wetness of his face against my skin. It warms my heart like a heat lamp.

I am sorry. So sorry. It kills me when I can't save you. You're my family, my true love, Darling.

But I feel us disappearing after every death, every strike against us, like a cleaver or an ax against our handholding, severing our tight embrace with their judgment. Their indifference. We aren't the perfect definition for a family.

“When can we move out of this place? We need to leave before they come to try and separate us again…” I tremble in his arms.

Duck sighs, cheeks drying. “Ask me in December, Red.”

I linger on the sidelines between red hot heaven and blue frozen hell. My deepest love has been sabotaged in the neverending season with the longest, blistering summer days that haunt me. I do not know why he stills my anxious heart, quieting my angry head with luscious calm…

December seems to never come. And you, my dearest love, are not coming back.

You knew me less and less, the painful trauma of our shared abuse lingering in layers and deep-seated cruelty, and as we laid down on our bed each time after, your eyes averted mine as I desperately needed you to look at me.

Now we are as blue as that summer we consumed ourselves with trying so hard to leave.

“Ask me in December,”

The haunted echo tilts my guts into blue sadness.