In the Summertime

It's now April. That doesn't mean much to most people but as the air warms and the pollen catches on the wind in a fine yellow powder moving from one flower to the next, summer approaches quickly. The first summer I will be in 6 years without you, and that still doesn't mean anything to anyone.

Except for me and the plague of memories I get at the smell of sunscreen and swim suits and sunburns on my fair skin. The way you'd poke at the redness until it left white round blanks only to watch it fill in again. Amazed because your skin only ever knew how to be bronzed by the sun, not burned.

We’d hop in the car and drive a little further away to kayak down some river on a cloudless day. It was the way you'd kiss me as we'd float on giant tubes to day drink our worries away that made me wish summer could always stay.

Summer was always our favorite. Summer was always better. We never failed to be happier with the sun shining high in the sky and our bodies half naked on some lawn chairs or beach towels.

I wish everything could have stayed the way summer felt with you, but summer turns into fall, and fall into winter.

And as the wind turns colder and the sun begins to hide, we don't love each other like we once did in the summertime