in lazy summer.

In lazy summer,

barefoot fumbling through a field of dandelions,

whispering secrets to the bees because I knew they’d never tell.

The backyard was my hunting ground and the swing set my spaceship.

Who knew rusty chains and a cracking rubber seat could propel me into the sky,

not running on jet fuel but rather a Miss Mary Mack.

My soles were always muddy,

knees always scraped

Fall never lasted long enough for me to notice

but Winter’s wistful wonders had me willful enamored.

Frozen fingers never failed to betray me in a snowball war against my brother and the neighbors,

and I will blame my losses on faulty hands over lack of body mass from now unto forever.

Nights always ended with fits of laughter and stove top hot cocoa,

and I could not rest my head until I had gazed out at the quiet, still, snow blanketed world that waited just outside my window

Overnight the earth would turn over,

spring had laid down its hand

I would wake to a chorus of birds and soft sunlight,

just to roll into the garden to help my mother yield the fruits of the new year.

I fell quite often spring,

hurling my body down the hill outside my front door

in hand-me-down rollerblades just a few sizes too big

The night before my thirteenth birthday I stayed up just so I could witness the last minute of my childhood officially tick away.

I had become one of the sovereign big kids.

I didn’t know it then but the slow slip out of childhood is not to be noticed until it’s already gone,

left to wonder when you stopped letting your head run wild, fabricating fantastical stories of love, adventure, but never heartbreak.

Spots where I once played have become placeholders for too small shoes and unfinished projects,

seasons have lost much of their wonder,

and I forget to check if the world still waits for me outside of my window before laying to rest

I will always choose crying over cut knees to crying over a broken heart,

and I will always choose chasing butterflies to chasing success to the point where I am never truly here anymore.

We know we are balancing on a tightrope of borrowed time and borrowed breath,

and yet we still seem to waste it

Some pour out every ounce of themselves they have to the undeserving until there is no more,

left worn and washed up.

Some seem to keep what sensibility they have gained,

but even the sane seem somewhat battered.

Life has learned a few things on how to make it difficult for those who choose to live it

I wish to sail on the wind, away away,

to where the clocks are frozen and I can simply stop,

sit in lazy summer and bask in its simplicity

I know now that being a big kid is overrated,

and to the men and women who told me not to grow up too fast,

I’m sorry, but I have failed you.