I am a summer child with long brown hair
lightening at the tips
I am a summer child with dark Arab skin
wisps of sun-bleached blond on strong arms
I am a summer child with bare feet and the laughter
of the river when it runs cold and high and wild
I am a summer child who hears peace in the music of the breeze
who only glimpses freedom in the conversation of the arching corridor of the trees
I am a summer child who’s had
winter in her heart for long, long months
two summers come and gone and still
her heart has not thawed
what happens to this summer child when
winter slithers closer again
heartbreak in every falling leaf
your shadow looming close once more
near enough to touch but not
to hold?
what happens to the summer child who
takes to her bed, sleeps away
the hours, refuses to see
her mother, shuts away the dinner
smells, listens to Julien Baker in her headphones until
dark falls and then again and three a.m. until
sleep cradles her, as long as it is willing
she will take it, and then silently waif through
a world that seems too bright
yet with no color?
The summer child feels the ice spreading.
The summer child always knew it would.
The summer child knows it would be easier to be
a winter child, someone who could
accept endings for what they seem to be and
look forward to spring’s new thaw
but she knows she wouldn’t be a summer child
if she could do this
knows she wouldn’t believe in
the impossible power of love
and someone please tell this summer child that there’s
hope for a hopeless summer child
and her hopeless icicle heart
after all.