July 1st

July 1st

I’ve started to prepare myself for the end of summer. For the coming of autumn. For the winter I think I want, but when it comes, you bite and you hiss, you hold me so tightly, you promise to keep me, to not let me shiver at your whispers, I can’t help it, I can’t help it! July 6th and I’ve started to prepare for the winter I know will come, that I half want and half despise. The longest day has already passed. It half fascinates me and half revolts me (my birth certificate does the same). I think of the last winter and how at points I thought I could love it. The ocean still at my feet. Hands cold, tucked up inside of my coat. Silk and the savage flames. Watching the shadows on the floor. People walking past. I do not think I captured it like I wanted to. I think of winter and I think now of this summer, and why do I still feel the same? I feel so old at nineteen.

I have a re-occurring dream of someone kissing my cheek. I do not know who they are. The dream begins and ends there. I’ve had it for five nights. Will it come again tonight? I do not know who they are- what I mean is it could be a stranger, a lover, my grandmother, my mother, it could be anybody. I do not know who it is because all I see is the view in front of me and all I feel is one gentle breeze sweep around my palms and the lips pressed on my cheek. This view in front of me is one I think I know, but have not seen. Feels both new and strangely old.

I’m waiting for my hair to grow. It has grown a lot already my mother tells me. I do not think I’ll cut it again. When I cut it, short, short, she did it a lot shorter than I originally wanted, she said it would suit me, as I heard the hair cut, the scissor sharp on the ends, I thought, I’m loosing all my memory. I am made of memories. I watched them fall to the floor. I felt a tears on my lips as she sprayed my hair with water, she said it’s easier to cut when it’s damp, and I thought about all the fingertips that had brushed through my hair when I was younger, and I vowed to never cut it again. In the church the week later, I lit a candle for my grandmother and said never again.

I’m not sure what I am meant to be doing. It rained and I thought about desire. If I had to write a letter to what has already been of this summer I would say

I mourned you the moment I met you. I met you and I knew it would end. It will end sooner because I want it to last. There is still time. We still have time. I’ll still find you once you are gone. But for the time we have left, let it be sweet. Let it linger softly, the cotton on skin, the salt in the hair, the smoke in the air, the honey on the tongue. Let us be tender. Let us be sweet. Somewhere there is a fire starting and we have sparks of our own. You’re letting me mourn you. You hold me for it. You kiss me for it. We both know you’ll go eventually.

and the air is soft, and the light will be low, and it will be amber and dawn and the first leaf will fall and I’ll know you are slipping away and the air grows cool, and you won’t see my hair reach past my shoulders, someone will come back next year, they’ll say they are you, but the air will be different and the lines in my palms will not feel the same.

when the times comes i’ll whisper Adieu into my cupped hands and hope it echoed enough for you to hear.

Adieu.

July 1st. I’m mourning the loss of summer too soon.

Beatrice.