The Summer of Loss

In the midst of all the chaos there was you, always you. You came in on a rainy June day with arms folded over your chest, resting in your lap. The gas station we pulled up to was empty, and the sky screamed from the heat wave that passed through the valley. We smoked, toked, and laughed at the unexplainable things surrounding us. The dirt roads no longer tearing up dust behind us, and the long mountain road went on forever, just to find a small place hidden amongst the trees. And I looked into your eyes, and they sparkled with the sun. The green leaves lighting up your face. And I can’t look at the aspens the same without you here. They quiver and shake with the oncoming storm, shelter isn’t far, and it isn’t near, and your hands so effortlessly shift into the next gear to get up the never ending hill. You said we could conquer mountains and streams, and you led me by the hand into the midnight forest, you stole a kiss from my lips and darted towards the door. The man inside knows you better than me, and he looks astonished when he sees my face, and your eyes glow like lightning bugs at night. The bugs ache and tug at my skin as I down another beer, trying to relish the moment before the ending begins.

On the hottest days of summer we would skinny dip in that old culvert, letting the brook trout nibble our toes. You never would touch me outside the comfort of home. And maybe that was the way it was, to let the temptations fester and boil until there was nothing left to hold them in. You are now miles away from me in that White Pine forest, prickled with no memories of me. I sit and wallow in all the memories of you.

You laid me between the birches, the cedar, and the apple trees, you laid me in the dirt and you laid me in your bed. With our voices echoing the love we made in time with the roaring thunder. Your lips brushed my thighs and neck. The rain beating the roof, and everyone being able to hear us. And in that moment I knew I didn’t want to leave. But the inevitable was at the end of the tunnel, and I knew it. But you made it so easy to forget the ending.

Maybe I was too caught up in your sappy eyes, and gentle touch. Maybe I was too intoxicated by you. Maybe I was too in love with you to see where this would end. But in the midst of all the chaos there was you. You were the chaos that dug roots so deep that I am still finding and picking the pieces out. But just like Burdock you come back every season. I want to thrive in the summer of loss with you beneath the canopy of the Northern White Cedar forest, to run for cover when we get caught in the rain. To take your drunken hand in mine and dance with you till the end of love, in that dusty parking lot. But there is no want with you anymore. Your eyes no longer look at me, and your mind only sometimes wanders to mine.

Your memories cause mass flooding, reminding me of our adventures up the mountain. Always the mountain. Every now and again I have this urge to go to there just to find the pieces of you that you left behind. Knowing damn well they aren’t there, and you aren’t there.

In the midst of all the chaos there was you, and there was the summer of loss. You were what caused the loss. But there is no denying the love that ran so deep between the both of us. And maybe it was just poor timing or maybe it was us, just two ships passing by in the night. That’s what you always described it as. In the midnight hour I can see your silhouette, covered by sheets, your breathing slowed, drifting to another world. One where I no longer exist.

It’s been a year but it feels like a life time since I last saw you. But the last time I really saw you, you were packing your bags to wander off to some dream that you didn’t even catch. The tears that swelled in my eyes was more painful than any cut or broken bone, and the ones that swelled in yours were even worse. I said goodbye to you in the midst of all this chaos. And in the summer of loss I lost you. I lost you to the promise of freedom, to the promise of a better life. With your arms around me I couldn’t, wouldn’t let go. You promised you would come back, I promised I would stay. And in the fall of heartbreak, I broke your heart in two, and you broke mine worse than I did yours. If this is what love feels like, I don’t ever want to feel it again. And in the end you wore my name on your neck, and I wore yours on my tongue. But you couldn’t stay long enough to hear me say I love you. Maybe you heard it in my voice when I talked, or maybe you saw it in my eyes when I looked at you in the hours of dusk and dawn. I knew you loved me when you looked at me.

I know this was not your intent, but saying goodbye to you broke me into pieces that I still have yet to find. And I looked at you from the front seat that day and I knew there was no one but you. There will always be you, whether there be chaos, calm, or loss. There will always be a space for you.

And in the Mid-day hour of this rainy June day you came back to me in waves of glass. And my heart breaks one more time. Saying goodbye to you was the hardest thing I have had to do other than trying to let you go.

So this is goodbye, to you, to the chaos, to the summer of loss.