farewell to summer

My soul lies in the ashes of a fire pit. Dashed to the ground between decayed, coal black wood. My spirit disintegrates into the air as do the last dying embers, as does the smoke bellow into the air, now only a sliver of fragile burning. And the cold wind shall continue to dim the fire unless the caress of flesh, blood and tears do unleash another spark into the depression. Once again the air and surrounding matter will be aglow in orange, illumination to see the many ruins that are hidden in darkness. Some view the ruins as gold, some see the treasures as playthings. I will not be tempted again by the delicate hand of God, nor man, nor my feeble methods to believe that the memory of human remains embedded in mud belonged to my reality. 

Beside the fire pit, mud slowly glides into bone-white stone, then to sand, then to the dark waters studded with shivering starlights, a thousand white candles, arriving at my resting place. As if the stars fell upon the planet to leave a sky so barren. The moon is blackened, and I have no blood left to spare, yet it is youthful in how it swims through the tide. I feel not the familiar heartless cold this time. I feel nothing. To be alive is to drown slowly. I am fire and the waters of meaning do nothing but extinguish me. So I burn on the shore and pray that mercy allows me to give in without pain. 

I keep hearing the distant echos of a small child waiting for their next play date with the boy next door. I keep hearing a small voice asking me when I’ll see him again, when the world will look brighter and when I’ll stop hurting our body. I don’t know how to answer so for the time being I ignore whatever sorrow crashes against the rocky shores of my heart against a sea of liquid memory. I have had a deliciously bland life in my years with the only torment coming from my biology and blood, familiar blood that runs hot and gives me rashes. All my issues might just be an allergic reaction to my own history. 

Change is around the bend. Change is a butterfly. You can’t be moving constantly for change to land upon you. But what if change isn’t what I need? All this time perhaps the answer lies in something - or someone - else. 

I fear I’ve been alive for too long. 

Maybe it’s what I need to see. To see why everyone’s betting on me. Looking through the mirror, peeling back the flesh to capture what draws in the love and compassion.

The lake envelopes me in a hug without judgement, the water in its fluidity accepts any life form that wades into its body. I'd rather feel the stinging chill of lakewater than the boiling rage a mother spouts that melts flesh from bone.