I think of you when the sky is blue. The birds sing and children run across their lush front lawns, screaming with joy at the top of their lungs. On a day as beautiful as May, the streets are lined with sunscreen-scented women whose smiles are wide as they walk in stride, some with lovers by their side; sweaty hands intertwined.
It was foolish of me to believe we could have ever been like them. Pathetic of me to wait around, frozen in the winter months, for promises of adventures that had the potential to thaw my icy heart. All those late night talks about taking back roads across state borders, spending the warmest months by each other's side, were just fantasies you let me believe. I suppose I should have known, but dammit, I was broken, and if there was one thing I had for the future, it was hope. Because without it, I sure as hell wouldn't have survived.
That fateful Spring, just as the flowers began to bloom, the person who meant the most to me made a home beneath the recently defrosted soil. With a grief-stricken heart, I held onto the thought of you like the wind could have swept me away if I were to let go. And you held onto me, too, though I can't understand why. If I didn't water your potential, as you had insisted, why did I still have access to your garden gates? Would a starving man give away his last piece of bread? Would a dying man waste his last breath on an enemy? Perhaps these are questions that neither of us can answer, but I know what logic would say.
The sun began to set later in the day; the potential to experience something new was within our reach. But the season for new beginnings only brought about the end of you and me.
Summer left me with no protection from the blazing sun. You kissed me goodbye one last time and traveled with my heart alongside someone new; the winding roads I dreamt of all winter suddenly became hers to venture. The beaches where your dogs would swim, the island you sailed to, the park where you sat under your favorite oak tree—everywhere you said you'd take me—all of those plans were set out to sea on a ship that left me seasick with an aching betrayal when I found out what you had been up to, and with whom, since we'd buried things.
Autumn rears its head; clouds move in, and I wait beneath them for icy rain to pour down and wash away the burns you left on every inch of my skin. As the trees cry their amber tears, I will remember the way you melted my fears and promised that when December came the cold would never get to me. But you didn't mean what you said, and now I am trapped inside an eternal winter.
