Summer Love

We fell in the love in the summer.
Like a pop song playing on the radio
With the windows down
And the wind in your hair.

Or I suppose, you could say,
I fell in love.
He drifted along a lazy current,
Enjoying the ride but
Never worrying about the path.
One day,
finding himself in the same
Hidden pool of affection
That months prior,
I’d been unceremoniously dumped.
But by that time,
I was nearly drowning.

It was a first date,
On the hood of his car
At the drive-in theater
Under the orange and gold sunset
As the fireflies started to flicker
In the field across the way.

And it was listening
To the crickets whine
And frogs burble
By my parent’s pool
As we danced around
Deciding to be a couple.

And it was so many summers after.
Of memories formed in
The heat and humid haze.
Of thinking this was our time.
Just like in all the songs.
But that’s not how last summer went.

It had faded into that hot and
Uncomfortable part of late August that
No one’s able to remember
In mid-winter when pool time
And bikinis seem like a welcome reprieve
From layers of wool and
Biting wind every time you step outside.
That time when the air conditioning is broken
Or maybe it was never working in the first place
But now your thighs peel off the leather seats
Of your car with the slick suction of sweat
And you’re wondering if it’s worth it
To have the mechanic take a look
Or could you manage until next year.

You don’t think about how it’ll be too late.
Or at least you try not to think about
How you’re suffering now.
“It’s worth it,” you think.
“I’ll have time to save up the extra money.”
But they’re empty reassurances
Because after summer
The leaves turn brown and die.
Sure, there might be a week or so
Of spectacular colors.
But this was your last summer
And it was gone before you understood.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

I promise all my new blogs aren’t going to be angsty posts about love lost! But as the season transitions pretty markedly into summer, I couldn’t help but feel a bit nostalgic for the kind of “summer love” I deeply associate with the warm weather and longer days. Many of my best memories from my previous relationship happened in summer, but last summer was also when I watched it deteriorate around me which makes it quite a bittersweet time. So here’s to the dawning of a new summer with hopefully more pleasant memories than the last.