Turquoise-> @KateHardy
Green-> @EllieMae
Dark Blue-> @dissonance
Pink-> @Que
Sky Blue-> @JazzicusMaximus
Grey Blue-> @WeepingWisteria
Text version:
Spoiler! :
Dear Spring,
You smell like life and your heart beats the rhythm of a child taking their first steps. Always brushing grass off your dirty knees, rolling down the hills and falling asleep in the meadow like there's no life outside of this, here. Time runs across this plain like a bubbling stream, carrying with it every dream of some rose-scented forever. Your rain comforts me as I sit under the tin roof with a cup of blackberry tea. You're a promise of beautiful things to come, the hope that shines on the path forward. I will admit, you terrify me more than any other season of life. Your branches are feeble and delicate, like the leftover ice on the lake from Winter. You turn me into a child all over again, unbreakable, but so fragile, grinning and crying and laughing all at once. A worm finds its way into my apple; I will never, ever trust anyone again. You warm me up, urge me to dance to my heart's content. But a minute later you stop me with a firm foot telling me to go somewhere else, and I don't understand why. I'd prefer the constant rage from Summer than your unconsistencies.
Dear Summer,
I don't remember you being so oppressive when we were young, that flicker between your teeth, like a flame, when you say "Let's go out and play;" I see the fields we ran through filled with flowers, filled with fire. You bear apples sitting in ashes of the orchards they came from. I wake each day like I haven't seen sunlight in years, clawing at window sills and locked doors. You promise so many new beginnings and yet you mark so many endings. What happened to the way you used to hold my hand and promise to protect me? Now, you only crush me beneath your heel like a wildflower growing in the crack of a highway. My skin darkens while others burn, but you bring me on the edge of a heat stroke, sick for days. I can't breathe. This itch will never let me love you, no matter how I scratch it. As the years go by you remind me only to mourn the dreams that burned, hardly any time to dream anew. My sunkissed skin, a lashing from your powerful, outstretched arms, a reminder that never left me. At least, not until Fall found me.
Dear Fall,
You add a wonderful sight to my hikes up the mountain, when I sit on that rock under the tree. The fallen leaves provide companionship to ease my lonliness, as I realise: death is just around the corner, perhaps behind that grove of trees at the top of the trail. I remember when I grew roots here, deeper than the tallest tree. The memory sifts down on my shoulders with the leaves, the tug of nostalgia at my wrist. I find peace in your stillness. Renewal in the decaying leaves. And I feel nothing at all as I make my way back down the mountain, heading home. You remind me of what it's like to rest, that calling sleep one of the seven deadly sins has left me mulch. You teach me that its okay to rest, that sometimes to bloom you have to fall first. This is the hit you take after the first time; the second dull head rush, watered down, getting familiar with loss. Both living, and non-living go through the cycle of falling and breaking, to rise anew again with time but changed. Somehow, this is peace, I tell myself; renewal is just another word for succumbing. Just as we do death, just as we do the first snow of the year. And Winter calls to me.
Dear Winter,
As children we're taught to be afraid of death and curse the way sugar snow would crunch beneath our school shoes. But as an adult, I have realized that life is a cycle and death is just as much as a beginning as it is an end. Winter lasts so long for me, and the snow keeps piling on faster than I can shovel it off of my path. But it's sort of beautiful, the isolation, like a suffering that crystalizes into wisdom. I think of snowflakes under a microscop and how beautiful, delicate things always have the worst consequences. This loss is all-consuming; the most evil thing to be is alive. Everything pretty withers in your gaze and I wonder how I could dare to be any different. Your kiss cracks my lips, your touch makes the skin on my hands peel. I liken you to a hangnail, persistent, everlasting. One day, the hangnail will pull off with my hat, my scarf, my sadness shaken off like the snow in my hair as I turn my face towards Spring. And I will miss your serrated crystals every pollen-filled second.
You smell like life and your heart beats the rhythm of a child taking their first steps. Always brushing grass off your dirty knees, rolling down the hills and falling asleep in the meadow like there's no life outside of this, here. Time runs across this plain like a bubbling stream, carrying with it every dream of some rose-scented forever. Your rain comforts me as I sit under the tin roof with a cup of blackberry tea. You're a promise of beautiful things to come, the hope that shines on the path forward. I will admit, you terrify me more than any other season of life. Your branches are feeble and delicate, like the leftover ice on the lake from Winter. You turn me into a child all over again, unbreakable, but so fragile, grinning and crying and laughing all at once. A worm finds its way into my apple; I will never, ever trust anyone again. You warm me up, urge me to dance to my heart's content. But a minute later you stop me with a firm foot telling me to go somewhere else, and I don't understand why. I'd prefer the constant rage from Summer than your unconsistencies.
Dear Summer,
I don't remember you being so oppressive when we were young, that flicker between your teeth, like a flame, when you say "Let's go out and play;" I see the fields we ran through filled with flowers, filled with fire. You bear apples sitting in ashes of the orchards they came from. I wake each day like I haven't seen sunlight in years, clawing at window sills and locked doors. You promise so many new beginnings and yet you mark so many endings. What happened to the way you used to hold my hand and promise to protect me? Now, you only crush me beneath your heel like a wildflower growing in the crack of a highway. My skin darkens while others burn, but you bring me on the edge of a heat stroke, sick for days. I can't breathe. This itch will never let me love you, no matter how I scratch it. As the years go by you remind me only to mourn the dreams that burned, hardly any time to dream anew. My sunkissed skin, a lashing from your powerful, outstretched arms, a reminder that never left me. At least, not until Fall found me.
Dear Fall,
You add a wonderful sight to my hikes up the mountain, when I sit on that rock under the tree. The fallen leaves provide companionship to ease my lonliness, as I realise: death is just around the corner, perhaps behind that grove of trees at the top of the trail. I remember when I grew roots here, deeper than the tallest tree. The memory sifts down on my shoulders with the leaves, the tug of nostalgia at my wrist. I find peace in your stillness. Renewal in the decaying leaves. And I feel nothing at all as I make my way back down the mountain, heading home. You remind me of what it's like to rest, that calling sleep one of the seven deadly sins has left me mulch. You teach me that its okay to rest, that sometimes to bloom you have to fall first. This is the hit you take after the first time; the second dull head rush, watered down, getting familiar with loss. Both living, and non-living go through the cycle of falling and breaking, to rise anew again with time but changed. Somehow, this is peace, I tell myself; renewal is just another word for succumbing. Just as we do death, just as we do the first snow of the year. And Winter calls to me.
Dear Winter,
As children we're taught to be afraid of death and curse the way sugar snow would crunch beneath our school shoes. But as an adult, I have realized that life is a cycle and death is just as much as a beginning as it is an end. Winter lasts so long for me, and the snow keeps piling on faster than I can shovel it off of my path. But it's sort of beautiful, the isolation, like a suffering that crystalizes into wisdom. I think of snowflakes under a microscop and how beautiful, delicate things always have the worst consequences. This loss is all-consuming; the most evil thing to be is alive. Everything pretty withers in your gaze and I wonder how I could dare to be any different. Your kiss cracks my lips, your touch makes the skin on my hands peel. I liken you to a hangnail, persistent, everlasting. One day, the hangnail will pull off with my hat, my scarf, my sadness shaken off like the snow in my hair as I turn my face towards Spring. And I will miss your serrated crystals every pollen-filled second.
Cover credit-> KateHardy
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