August. And everything after.

August and Everything After

I woke at the end of August,

but the room of my mind was still in spring—

sunlight pale as dogwood petals,

Like mail stacked like unopened years.

A letter on my island to a tenant

who doesn’t live here anymore,

and I thought, oh, he just had a procedure done,

but no—

that was April, or was in March…

when everything seemed possible, yet impossible because of the darkness that was engulfing me.

Now the months collapse in my hands,

like songs I almost remember,

choruses that slip before I can sing them.

Trauma steals whole summers,

erases the middle verses,

and leaves me stranded in the wrong refrain.

Did it steal my summer? Only some of it.

And yet—

love stitched time differently.

It folded hours back into my pockets,

stitched light into seams

I thought were torn forever.

The yellow dress of a day that lingers,

the echo of laughter in a quiet room,

proof that something soft

can still survive the weight of memory.

But I am longing.

For something—anything—

to feel normal again.

For work to feel safe,

not a place where my chest tightens

before I even cross out the door of my home.

For my friend to come back,

to fill the silence I didn’t choose.
I don’t want to miss you forever.

I would never choose for you to be gone.

You did that.

You “wanted” that.

You wanted that?

The fuck you didn’t.

And so we both will lose sleep at night.

But for how long?

How long will you continue to put us through this?

For love to be out there for me,

not hidden, not fleeting,

not August slipping away like saltwater,

or wildfire,

or a bottle of wine uncorked and gone.

For my mind—

my own brain—

to stop feeling like it wandered too long in fog,

to trust that the ground I stand on is real,

that I am awake and here.

And everything after feels like this:

half-bloomed,

half-grieved,

a life paused and unpaused—

losing time,

gaining time,

still reaching for the one steady moment

that says I belong here.