Young Writers Society

one.

you and i are the spring showers.
you are the pitter patter in the morning,
against mama's kitchen window.
i am the torrential downpour
that chips the whitewash off the front porch steps.

two.

i held your handful of stardust for days after you left. i sat with my back against your barn. sat when the rain came, sat when the dead leaves fell around me, sat when the birds left. just watching the way the river whispered your name. you said you had to go when august came. i didn't believe you, i guess. i thought you'd fall in love with the sound of peepers, fall in love with the way the porch swing creaks when you swing too hard.
you're gone and the stars fell out of the sky, they glitter on my bedroom floor, broken mason-jar glass that cuts the bottoms of my feet when i can't sleep.

three.

there you are. i found you, between the tall grasses of august and the frosted mornings of january. you sat on the edge of my ford's bench seat and told me about the spring you imagined. told me about how the sound of my truck's gears shifting were the song that you heard right before you fell asleep.

(but then i lost you, right between the parenthesis in the letter you left me, i the letter that told me i was covered bridges in may and long dirt highways in june and that you just couldn't hold onto the wilting flowers i gave you any longer.)

that's okay, i guess. the flowers were nothing in comparison to the life you gave me. i wish you'd find me again, i wish i could lose you again, i wish i could see your hair in the sun, in the moon, in the rain. i wish i could see your eyes and the way your love refracted inside them. i wish i wish i wish i wish.

spring isn't the same without you.

four.

there are holes in my pockets. the stones i gather from the creek bed fall out sometimes, when i'm walking too fast or moving around. because of that, i try and stay still most of the time. i like to watch the shadows of the mountains on your face, on our quiet days. like to tell you that knowing how to skip rocks is more important than driving a car. you laugh when i say stuff like that and i swear to god even the woods stop to listen. when we go inside after the sun sets and the peepers whisper a lullaby, you sew up my pockets so there's no more holes. you tell me to dance and so we go outside on the lawn and dance with the fireflies and they tell us secrets of the universe.

five.

i used your august eyes as an excuse to sleep with someone else. i said that anyone who had eyes like a late-summer storm deserved what they got. after i got home that night you reeked of whiskey and moth balls and told me you spent the evening holding my heaving mother's shoulders as she cried over her sink of dirty dishes. i didn't know what to say so i gave you the fireflies i caught on the way home. they were all dead by morning, and you cried with your back against the barn for hours. the sunflowers turned their heads to you and asked what was wrong, and your august eyes turned january blue and ice flew from the fingertips i used to kiss.