Summer comes first. Always, summer comes first with a sunlight-like weight upon your shoulders. Everything, everyone is a light bulb, a candle that cannot be blown out despite the murderous winds. Pleasure dresses the unknown. Wonder builds an unexplored city. Doors open doors that open doors that expose your eyes to the play areas of enjoyment: mountains of dreams, slides of hope, clouds for trampolining. But spring comes next: the realization of the mirror, the blossoming of other eyes upon you. Thorns grow where they’re not supposed to and bars fence in your heart. Winter storms in like a hic … cup. Here, frozen faces stop smiles. Invisible clouds shield you from the forgotten warmth of yellow. Longing impregnates your mind, swallows softer thoughts until they sink below the surface of love. And finally you enter the fall, lose your footprints amongst the leave-carpeted floor. Some days your eyes are green and some days they are red. But most days your eyes are so black that you forget about the changing of the seasons.

(Originally published at the Eunoia Review here.)