Summer

summer 1 |ˈsəmər|
noun
the warmest season of the year, in the northern hemisphere from June to August and in the southern hemisphere from December to February : the plant flowers in late summer | a long hot summer | [as adj. ] summer vacation

 

Every afternoon I hopped onto my pink Strawberry bicycle with the little white basket on the front and the carrier that only barely held my haggardly blue schoolbag. Sometimes I would take to the streets with a purpose – buying a coke at the nursery on the corner or to enjoy the view from the cooling comfort of my friend’s swimming pool. Mostly I just rode around and around the neighbourhood until the trees cast long, comforting shadows, my sunburnt legs furiously pedalling while I constructed lifetime after lifetime of adventure and romance, of wealth and happiness. Ever the hero, my pedals transported me across galaxies to exotic destinations where I saved lives and fell in love. I watched the neighbourhood transform into a wonderland every afternoon and came home at dark with the summer in my hair. One day I waved to the neighbour’s daughter who laughed at the way my knees looked when I cycled and told me that oranges make me fat. The next day the streets didn’t change and then I got a bigger bike. In blue. 

Sleeve

sleeve |slēv|
noun
the part of a garment that wholly or partly covers a person's arm : a shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
• (also record sleeve or album sleeve) a protective paper or cardboard cover for a record.
• a protective or connecting tube fitting over or enclosing a rod, spindle, or smaller tube.

If my words fail me (as my words often fail me), if I vomit cliché after cliché onto every blank canvas, into every open carcass, if suddenly I spoke only in rhyme and felt only in verse, if the majesty of a yellow flower failed to captivate me and my treacherous body no longer responded to the longing of my heart, if I wept at your devotion, if I spent a lifetime chasing after nothing and escaping nothing, could weakness not become bravery?

If I could muster the energy to be really angry and spit out impotent little swearwords - fuck, cunt - at surprised passersby in supermarkets, if I hurled ripe fruit across walkways at the overweight shoppers in short-sleeved blue checkered shirts buying chocolate flavoured breakfasts to stuff their empty children, if I could yell at every pretty girl in a summer dress that pussy has a shelf life, if I dramatically tore out tufts of hair and covered my naked body in red dirt, if I cried out every dead relative and the boy who stuck his fingers in me when I was only a child, would bravery not become death?

Nature

nature |ˈnā ch ər|
noun
1 the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations : the breathtaking beauty of nature.

Here we begin.

This is the nature of the night. We’ll leave before sunrise, when the flickering lights become indiscernible from the light of reality. We’ll kick off our glass slippers before the first rays catch us, we’ll make a home under the covers and hope it passes without noticing.

This is the nature of dreaming. We can free ourselves and face ourselves over cascading waterfalls of deep blue, we can be the very best and bravest. We can stare into a black nothingness and feel only the slightest stir of excitement. We are never as afraid as when we wake.

This is the nature of love. We can fall, fall, fall and never hit the ground. We stir an uprising in a glance, we change a season in a touch, we erase a lifetime of dreaded sunrises and so become the sun.

Seam

seam |sēm|
noun
1 a line along which two pieces of fabric are sewn together in a garment or other article.

Every weekend my home dons a flamboyant hat. It puts on a song from the eighties and showers itself in a confetti of worn garments, empty champagne bottles and an assortment of picnic accessories. It dances about merrily with its arms in the air, wine overflowing delicate glasses with a comforting plop on the carpet. On Saturday it wakes up slowly at noon but gets up quickly to twirl about in its dotted underpants, laughing with its mouth all the way into a wide open waltz so I can see right into its throat of feather boas.

On a Monday morning it staggers slightly while pulling itself together at the seams before focusing a red, red eye on the contents of its inhabitant.