Everyone Should Fall In Love This Summer
By Thoughtis
We tried to love each other during the months of June, July, and August. We figured if we couldn’t make it work then — if we couldn’t open our hearts to each other when the sun was shining, the grass was green, and our legs were exposed — we couldn’t make it work at all. Summer is shorthand for the easy life. You’re more inclined to love then. You want to walk around outside with somebody and drink beers on some rooftop and fall asleep in your summer dress on the subway because the heat is beating down on you and causing your eyes to close. Your eyelids just feel so damn heavy and everything’s sticking to you, including love.
Tell me a lie in December and I’ll spit in your face. Tell me the same one in July and I’ll smile and want to hold you closer. Maybe it’s the sun damage. Maybe my brain is melting along with my popsicle. Whatever it is, I’m willing to fall right into you, one languid summer month at a time.
Our first kiss was on a porch late at night. We were both wearing shorts that seemed to invite some kind of sexual behavior. Like, here are my bare legs, please get on top of them. Everyone else in the house was drunk and asleep, their snores buzzing all the way through to the outside. You got on top of me and started to kiss my face, which was sweaty and obscured by my matted hair. We didn’t care what vestiges of summer had landed on our bodies though. We just wanted to touch, feel, smash, bump, move, whatever. We just wanted to drink each other up.
The months pass slowly. We have work during the day but we barely remember it once it’s over. Even if you’re too old to enjoy a proper summer of vacation, the season still casts a spell on your memory and lets you forget anything productive you did during the day. Life begins at 6 p.m. and doesn’t end till 9 a.m. That means we have 15 hours to make it count. We have 15 hours to leave our mark in the sand, on the grass, on each other. On your mark, get set…
No.
We try to drown the disconnect we both feel in clever make outs underneath the trees at parks. Kiss to feel closer and kiss some more when you’re not getting it. You make me smile before and after sex. I don’t want to leave you when it’s over but I know I will. I like leaving your bed in the morning but not as much as I like getting into it at night.
The summer distracts us from everything that’s real. Together, we can create the kind of relationship we see in the movies. Here I am wearing your t-shirt and kissing you on a beach on the Fourth of July. Here we are together in the backyard smiling happily in tank tops. Here we are in bed with our faces looking sun-kissed and safe. The season is the third party in the relationship. We’re having a legitimate threesome with summer and once it leaves, all we’ll be left with is a down jacket and each other.
In the end, we have romance but not love. We have a mutual love and respect for each other but it just doesn’t translate to something that can withstand all seasons.
I still care about you though. You still care about me. Maybe we’ll meet again in the summertime.