In the Backs of Other Women

My first official poem since my few-year hiatus. It's fair to say, then, that it isn't great. So, enjoy, and feel free to comment and tell me what you think. :)

I fell back into my childhood.

Sticky fingers, and sugar-
coated lips.

Hot dogs with chili,
sprinkled cupcakes, ice cream
melting, dripping down chins
and staining grubby tees.

Picnics and baseball—
Summertime in this City.

But, I’m crying,
stinging,
lonely.

Because summer in this city
was never my time of year.

I like the cold,
the rain,
and, when the sun rises early
bringing me into this Brand-New Day
I get a little bitter
at all things bright and warm.

But summer, it comes, invariably,
unstoppable,
suffocating heat and sun-up
’til way past bedtime.

And I don’t sleep easier,
or more comfortably,
in the summer. I toss,
and I turn, counting down days
’til fall.

Ninety degrees and rising.

The world changes around me—
I’m afraid and a little angry.

So, I curl up in my corner,
with a book and with some coffee
and pretend it was never summer
that the seasons don’t change at all.

All the happy people,
tanned and bleached and sun-dyed,
can keep their distance from a cold
heart like mine.

Enjoy the sun, Summer-timers,
because fall is coming,
as impossible to evade as the weather
is to predict.

And while you complain
I’ll be dancing in the rain
trying to channel something
that Summertime took away.

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