Gone Like Summer

It is an awkward thing, watching. Swaying alone on the breeze in a seat for two, waiting. First the one side a-kilter and then the other from her weight, the chains creaking, the wood groaning with uninvited effort.

It is brazen, somewhat evil even how the leaves cackle on the drive, skitter-scattering atop the chalky concrete, their spirals gathering to a swarm prior to sudden and unpredictable lapses. Befitting her mood she cheers the frenzy on from beneath her blanket; silent hurrahs for the old leaves crawling, and the new ones falling; orange ones and red ones both somehow golden, their circles fueling her angst, kickstarting a tepid pulse which weakens more with each sad lapse in the wildish winds.

Gray and stark the day. Windy and woolly the sky, it’s swept clouds mussed as her hair, with no one to care.

And with shameful finality not even a dusk to mark the day, but rather a nightfall like rising water, sinking her, and the leaves, and the wind in chilled darkness until kisses and lovemaking and happiness are pulled forever away under their whirlwinds.

He is gone like the fresh breath of summer. The gnawing grows inside her. And he’ll never come again.

He is gone. Gone like summer.