Kailyn

16

Summer was for soul searching, you said
as you cut open the flesh of a peach
and picked out the pit with your nails.
I doubted you then,
for I could not see beyond the edges of my summer reading books.
I could not see the summer as the empty beach it used to be.

I only heard the ticking of the clocks,
the sweep of an X over days of the calendar.
How could I breathe, I asked,
if I was suffocating from standards wrapped invisible around my neck?
They were numbers always.

800 on the SAT.
150 pages left to go.
30 days of freedom wasted.
2 hours to midnight.
4.0 GPA.

I could not search, I told you then,
I could not look away from the 100%
from the gold medal,
from the race and the scoreboards and the finish line.
You swallowed a slice of juicy peach.
I watched it drip down your chin as you looked at me.
What happened to the days, we'd muse,
of the times I could dig my toes in sand
and cup a seashell to my ear?
What happened to the days and the nights,
of staying up past bedtime to finish that movie
that had my heart pounding?

Why is my hand so used to writing
over copies of tests under florescent lighting?

I stepped outside today,
felt the summer sun bathe my damp hair.
I heard the birds chirp disharmoniously, not caring who heard them
as long as they got their message across.
I let my hands toy with a rock,
felt the rough edges and the dimples of rains long past.
I looked at my legs, pale and pasty,
now speckled with ruby red bites.

This could not be summer, I thought,
without the birds and the bees and the bugs.
I slapped one dead against my knee.
Splattered to black ash.
And I picked.
I picked at the surface for a long time.