each year at the end of summer, I always find myself
perched on my window-sill
some years with a cigarette hanging from my fingers,
with hopes that the ash will become invisible in the gutter
(from my mother’s eyes),
some years smoke-free (this year)
but every year with End by Frank Ocean in my headphones
telling me that the truth is obsolete
and that we are all just candles in the sun
(which tugs at my heart more as the years go on)
this year, it’s Cayendo too
(I still really, really love you, yes I do)
the air of finality chokes me
as the flame of another quick year is blown out
by the breeze of a departing summer
(which seems to whistle
through the crack
in my wall earlier each year)
hard for me to admit that maybe this year
wasn’t better than the last
(a quiet truth that breaks my heart)
constantly craving a linear progression
that the universe can’t give me
I find myself back on this window-sill,
with the Ghosts of Myself Past
keeping me company;
all squeezed onto the thin ledge
so many versions of myself I have cast out this window,
endings and beginnings meeting and kissing
a cycle, a unity and a fracture all at once
the past weighs heavy in the present;
the air smells the same
the landscape is unchanged
but I am shape-shifting again,
washed clean under the summer moon
art by Jade Fagersten
