the end of the summer

I wrote him a desperate, wordy letter that said, "the summer's almost over and I wanted to tell you I love you." It really didn't say that exactly-- I was around nineteen and not nearly articulate enough for that. I thought it said that, but really I probably wrote something like, "I just wanted to say I miss you and I hope that you don't hate me because of the bad way we split up" or something awkward/uncool to that effect (I probably should have apologized for the threatening Sharpie sign I put on his car that declared my hate-- that happened at the beginning of the summer, when such displays of crazy seem like a great idea).

I may or may not have included bad poetry about how I hate/the sound/ of crickets/because now/ when I hear their August moan/I'm not kissing you/I'm all alone. (Will someone invent a special time machine that transports us to these moments of abysmal, naked longing so we can edit them and make ourselves...well...less abysmally naked?)

This time of year, when it's hot and bright and I'm tan and busy, I think about July romances and the cliche of the weepy goodbye: teenagers leaving summer camp boyfriends behind, the kisses wet on their memories like grass; people breaking up before going to college; the crackly burn of a vacation hook-up soon fizzling to a hazy flashback-- an anecdote told to a friend over melting ice cream.

I walked with my friend Allison around her neighborhood last night. It was so steamy out, you could see the moisture rising off the grass, and our quiet chit chat in the little parking lot behind the bank somehow sent us both back, reeling, to that age where the summer and all its promises and drama was all that was going on.  She said that she felt just like she did when she was a kid, and she would go swimming all day in someone's pool, and then go back to someone's house for a sleepover, all tired from the sun yet ready to disclose the deepest recesses of her soul to whatever best friend of the moment was with her.

It's just that muggy, distinct summer air: so August. 

So today I'm remembering that first real broken heart. How it got wound up like a wristwatch, beating with love, how he pulled the pin, stopping time, or so it seemed. 

A few nights after I sent that ill-advised letter, I sat on my back porch and tried to explain to my father: I hate the end of the summer.

I had that veneer of bitterness and resolve. But I knew it would happen all over again, probably the next summer.